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"Letters from Baghdad" is the story of a true original, Gertrude Bell, sometimes called the female “Lawrence of Arabia.” More influential and famous in her day than her colleague Lawrence, Bell was an explorer, spy, archaeologist and diplomat who helped shape the Middle East after World War I and established the Iraq Museum, infamously ransacked in 2003.
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Letters from Baghdad is available to stream on pbs.org and the free PBS App, available on iPhone, Apple TV, Android TV, Android smartphones, Amazon Fire TV, Amazon Fire Tablet, Roku, Samsung Smart TV, LG TV, and Vizio.
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About the Show
"Letters from Baghdad" is the story of a true original, Gertrude Bell, sometimes called the female “Lawrence of Arabia.” More influential and famous in her day than her colleague Lawrence, Bell was an explorer, spy, archaeologist and diplomat who helped shape the Middle East after World War I and established the Iraq Museum, infamously ransacked in 2003.
Advisor to Winston Churchill and outspoken critic of colonial policies in Iraq, Bell was considered the most powerful woman in the British Empire. Voiced and executive produced by Academy Award-winning Tilda Swinton, the film uses stunning, never-before-seen footage of the region to immerse the viewer in Bell’s world.
The story is told entirely in the words of Bell and her contemporaries, excerpted from letters, private diaries, and official documents. "Letters from Baghdad" chronicles Bell’s extraordinary journey into both the uncharted Arabian desert and the inner sanctum of British Colonial power. The film takes us into a past that is eerily current. Why has Bell been written out of the history she helped make?
Producer
Gertrude Bell, 1921.
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Gertrude Bell Archive, Newcastle University
Cairo Conference, 1921, with Gertrude Bell, T.E. Lawrence, and Winston Churchill on camels.
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Gertrude Bell Archive, Newcastle University
Footage still of street scene, Constantinople, early 1900s.
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Gaumont Pathé Archives
Footage still, Arab girl, early 1900s.
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Gaumont Pathé Archives
Round guffah boat on Tigris, early 1900s.
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University of South Carolina Archive
Footage still, Dead Sea, Palestine, early 1900s.
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Lobster Films
Footage still of Victorian women in the Middle East, early 1900s.
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Lobster Films
Cairo Conference, 1921, with Gertrude Bell, T.E. Lawrence, and Winston Churchill.
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Gertrude Bell Archive, Newcastle University
Photograph by Gertrude Bell, 1914, Arabia.
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Gertrude Bell Archive, Newcastle University
Gertrude Bell's camp in 1907, Bin Bir Kilisse, Turkey.
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Gertrude Bell Archive, Newcastle University
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