Born to Die is a poem by Iraqi poet Zaher Mousa and is in his native Arabic.

There are no subtitles, as I want you to hear to the emotion in this great poet’s voice, to hear the timbre. Born to Die was a commission from Reel Festivals and was shot in Iraq for Filmpoem by Ryan Van Winkle.

Expanding ideas from his previous commission, Alastair conceived this as a pair with Swoon, who made the English language counterpart, translated by Jen Hadfield after bridge translation by Lauren Pyott.