A series of short documentaries about Iraqi refugees in the Twin Cities is scheduled to be shown next week. Local filmmaker Nate Fisher has collaborated with refugees to tell stories often overlooked amid 13 years of war: of families displaced and people whose lives were forever overturned, many of them well-educated, pluralistic and cultured middle-class Iraqis.

The five short films are often poignant and frequently surprising. In one film, "The Barbershop," Iraqi refugee Zaid Al­sham­maa recounts a traumatic boyhood experience while visiting a Baghdad barbershop, told from a Columbia Heights barbershop. In another, "That's What We Hear on the News," Jamal Ali, an Iraqi who studied in the United States in the 1970s, paints a picture of how the war sadly made an American family more sophisticated in its questions about Iraq and its people.

The project, "Iraqi Voices," is sponsored by the Minneapolis-based Iraqi and American Reconciliation Project and was made through a grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board, through the Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund.

The films are being hosted at Macalester College by MacHOPE (Macalester Helping Open Peaceful Exchange), a student organization that promotes greater understanding between local communities and post-conflict peoples around the world.

The films, which are free and open to the public, will be shown at 7 p.m. Dec. 2 at Macalester's Ruth Stricker Dayton Campus Center, at Snelling and Grand avenues in St. Paul.

Minnesota native Fisher produced and directed "The Unreturned," an award-winning documentary about the 4.7 million Iraqi refugees displaced by the war in Iraq. He said the displacement, one of the most severe refugee crises in human history, still seems like an afterthought when people talk about the war.

"Since all we really see about Iraq in the media are car bombs, terrorists and religious fundamentalists, I felt like it was really important for people to get to know these new Minnesotans," he said.

Mark Brunswick • 612-673-4434