Touched by the plight of an aspiring Iraqi filmmaker whose dreams of working in Hollywood seemed to fall with Baghdad, American filmmaker Liev Schreiber invites the ambitious wannabe director to intern on Everything Is Illuminated, to unexpected results. In 2004, just one year after the United States launched a devastating attack on Baghdad, MTV ran a story about a 25-year-old Iraqi film student named Muthana Mohmed, who remained determined not to let the strife that consumed his country consume his dreams as well. At the time, American actor Schreiber was preparing to make his directorial debut with the film Everything Is Illuminated. After seeing the documentary on television, Schreiber was consumed by guilt for having so many amazing opportunities in the film industry and determined to give Mohmed the chance of a lifetime by inviting him to join the production of Everything Is Illuminated in the Czech Republic. Common wisdom dictates that "the road to hell is paved with good intentions," however, and as Mohmed attempted to balance the complications of living away from home for the first time with the cultural issues that arise while working with an all-American film crew, the situation quickly began to deteriorate.