[2] Directed by Jean-Claude Lubtchansky who also co-wrote the screenplay, and co-produced by Trans Europe Film, La Sept-Arte, Éditions Gallimard, Louvre Museum and La Cinquième,[3] with voice-over narration by French actors François Marthouret, Corinne Jaber [fr] and the director, the documentary is structured like an adventure film, taking viewers into the world of the first discoverers, epigraphists and Assyriologists who revealed Mesopotamian archaeology to the modern world.

[4][5] In addition to German dubbing, the documentary has been subtitled into English and Spanish,[6] and released on DVD by Centre national du cinéma et de l'image animée (CNC).

[7] Mesopotamia, the land between two rivers, whose brilliant civilisation began to develop 5000 years ago, apart from the reports of some ancient Greek and Roman chroniclers, it existed only as a biblical legend.

It is the oldest and longest civilisation, both for the influence it exerted on the Near East and on the Greek world as for its contribution to the material and spiritual development of humanity, and oddly the most poorly known to the general public.

[4] The book Il était une fois la Mésopotamie, on which the film is based, is an illustrated monograph on Mesopotamian archaeology, published in pocket format by Éditions Gallimard on 4 November 1993.