WIDE ANGLE travels with a busload of Shia pilgrims as they make their way from Iran to Iraq to visit Karbala, among the holiest sites in Shia Islam. Pilgrims travel to Karbala year-round to honor Hussein, the martyred grandson of the Prophet Muhammad, whose murder, in part, caused the schism between the Sunni and Shia. In the time of Saddam such observances were banned, but in wartime Iraq, marked by vicious sectarian violence, the pilgrimage is more dangerous than it has been in years. In PILGRIMAGE TO KARBALA we examine the roots of the Islamic schism, and see how an ancient murder affects the people of the Persian Gulf to this day.
There is an interview with Valsi Nasr at the end of the documentary:
