www.marraya.org The Iraqi Film Festival presents a short season of Iraqi documentaries, the majority of which made very recently, covering a wide range of social, political and human stories.
The festival will be held at London University’s School of Oriental and African Studies, Thornhaugh Street from 6th – 10th May.
It is being organized by the Marraya Association and the SOAS Palestine Society. The Marraya Association was formed in mid 2005 to promote Iraqi cultural events with a particular emphasis on engaging European audience participation.
The SOAS Palestine Society has a long history of running successful film festivals both at SOAS and the Barbican.
The purpose of this festival is to showcase the talent of Iraqi film makers, provide the British public the opportunity to revisit recent events in Iraq from an Iraqi perspective and raise funds, through sale of tickets and donations, to help Iraqi film makers currently working in Iraq make more films.
This is the first Iraqi documentary film festival of its kind in London. Most of the films shown are very recent, covering the post invasion period to the present day. Many of the films will have their UK premier at the festival.
The films include Where is Iraq? (2004) by Baz Shamoun. Seventy-five days before Saddam Hussein was captured by the U.S. Army, an Iraqi-Canadian filmmaker tries to re-enter his homeland after 27 years of forced exile. In Jordan, he meets other Iraqis who are no longer able to cross the border: workers without jobs, truckers, cab drivers and anxious refugees.
Worn down by years of war, sanctions, arbitrary arrests, torture and fear of execution, the men angrily recall the darkest years of the fallen regime. Still stunned by the course of events and uncertain about the future, they have no faith in the Americans, whom they believe are out for their oil.
"Are we another Palestine?" asks one of them. Shot in the thick of the action amid the ongoing chaos, the film reveals Iraqi opinions and their versions of the unfolding story.
Omar is My Friend (2005) by Mounaf Shaker A student at Baghdad University works as a taxi driver to support his wife and 4 daughters. As he negotiates his clapped out taxi around checkpoints, tanks and traffic jams, he talks about work, lack of petrol, electricity, having daughters in a male-dominated society, his personal aspirations and those of his society.
The Song of the Missing Men (2005) by Layth Abdulamir This is an extraordinary journey across Iraq starting with the marsh Arabs in the South and ending in the mountains of Kurdistan. The viewer is introduced to Iraq with all of its multifaceted ethnic groups whose customs and habits were warped, exploited or suppressed under the Saddam dictatorship. The film also explores the increasing sectarian divide and how that has manifested itself in the post occupation period. This beautifully shot; meticulously researched film will leave a lasting impression and provoke much thought about the societal trends emerging in Iraq.
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