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Film festival shows a different Iraq
10.5.2006
By Omar Anwar in London (ICR No. 176, 10-May-06)
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London documentary
screenings focus on culture as well as the struggle
of daily life in Iraq.
An Iraqi-French film director is on a mission to let
the world know that Iraq’s people have a long
history and rich culture, not just terrorism and
bloodshed.
After the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003, Layth
Abdulamir, a filmmaker who left Iraq in 1977 and now
lives in Paris, went back home for the first time to
make a documentary about “the painful situation,
complete destruction and the gray colour dominating
the country”.
“I felt that the real picture of suffering Iraqis
was absent and distorted," he said.
The distortions, he said, include the portrayal of
Iraqis merely as collaborators with the Americans,
or as people unable to shoulder the responsibility
for ongoing violence and political chaos in their
country.
“The dominant picture is of terrorism," he said,
adding that media reports "forget that Iraq has a
history. The media take the easy and fast picture,
but we try to focus on the Iraqi character."
Abdulamir's hour-long documentary entitled "The Song
of the Missing Men" is a journey from the marshes of
southern Iraq to the mountains of Kurdistan, showing
the rich, diverse culture of Iraq's different ethnic
groups.
The documentary was the main feature film at the
opening of the Iraqi Film Festival, held on May 6-10
at the London’s School of Oriental and African
Studies.
"We [filmmakers] need to contribute in conveying our
culture and concerns in an anthropological and
historical way," he said. "We need an analytical,
not superficial, approach, so that westerners make
sense of what's happening in Iraq.”
The festival, which organisers say was the first of
its kind in London, screened more than 15
documentaries directed and shot by Iraqi filmmakers
from both the West or Iraq. It attracted at least
250 people on the opening day, with audiences packed
into screening rooms and even sitting in corridors
to view films.
The films focused on issues such as life under
occupation; the sufferings of ordinary Iraqis in the
absence of security and public services; artists
trying to rebuild a looted arts centre; the lives of
women and children; and journalists working in
dangerous conditions.
Iraqi-British filmmaker Maysoon Pachachi said the
festival was an attempt to show how ordinary people
live under extreme conditions, and how they hope for
change.
“We sit here and watch the news from Iraq, but we
never know… the life of ordinary Iraqis," she said
in a speech at the festival.
Pachachi expressed hope that the filmmakers' work
could effect some change in Iraq, even if only for
the younger generation.
Many audience members were Iraqis, or of Iraqi
origin. For the older viewers, the festival was a
chance to see how Iraq had changed since they left.
“I want to go back tomorrow, but I can’t,” said
Salih Ibrahim, a pathologist who left Iraq in 1981.
“Where would I go? This is hell, thanks to America
and Britain… 7/7 [July 7, 2005 bombings in London]
happens daily in Iraq.”
Ibrahim said the festival was like a “bridge to my
country”.
The event offered some of the younger Iraqis in the
audience an opportunity to learn about their
parents' homeland.
For one young woman, however, the images of poverty
and hardship in the southern marshes and Kurdistan,
and particularly of a taxi driver struggling to
support his family, were shocking.
“It’s impossible that this is Iraq,” said a tearful
Layali, a student, touching a necklace fashioned
like a map of Iraq, the country she left when she
was two years old. “My parents drew me a shining
picture of Iraq."
Instead, Layali said she saw “Iraqis portrayed as
illiterates, ignorant and barefooted. I hope there
is another picture that was not presented in the
film”.
“It’s very important for the younger generation to
watch such films because they grew up with no
connection or sense of belonging to their nation,”
said Nihaya al-Othmani, who works as an Arabic
teacher.
Holding her 10-year-old son Ardowan proudly, al-Othmani
said, “Today he learnt what the word marshes meant.”
For Abdulamir, a sense of national pride was central
to the films and the messages they sent.
“We need to portray what is happening in Iraq
without bias, " he said. "We belong to Iraq. I’m an
Iraqi, and that is enough.”
Omar Anwar is a London-based freelance
journalist.
www.iwpr net
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