The film is based on the novel “Five Voices” by the Iraqi writer Gha’eb Taama Furman. “Turning Point” focuses on three male characters that work for a newspaper agency. Saeed (played by the late artist Taama Tamimi) a distinguished journalist, who writes about general public issues, Sheriff (Youssef al-Ani), a poet and an employee at the newspaper agency, and Nabil Beck, a wealthy young gentleman. Most of the scenes are filmed at offices of “Al Nas” newspaper, a political daily. Furman did present the newspaper within a specific political framework; but merely alluded to the newspaper which deals with the general concerns of the Iraqi citizen. Filmed in Iraq in 1975, the film was screened at a number of international festivals, most notably Moscow Film Festival IX (1975).

Jafaar Ali was born in 1933; he studied English literature at Baghdad University (1956), and obtained a Master’s degree in Film and Television from the University of Iowa, (1961). In 1965, Ali Directed and wrote the script for the film “collector”, and thus completed the first feature film produced by the public sector in Iraq.