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Iraqi cinema finds new direction

Iraq’s film industry has long been stunted by a lack of funding and governmental restrictions, but young and energetic directors and producers are working to turn it around.

A resident walks at the entrance of a cinema in Baghdad April 26, 2011. Iraq once had 82 cinemas, 64 of them located in the teeming capital, home to about 7 million of Iraq's 30 million people. One by one, they closed during the Saddam era, when the government controlled the selection and importation of films, until only five remained at the time of the invasion. The insurgency that followed and killed tens of thousands of people made Iraqis afraid of being in public places and crowds. They chose the relati
A resident walks past the entrance of a cinema in Baghdad, April 26, 2011. — REUTERS/Mohammed Ameen

BAGHDAD — Traveling in an old car, young Iraqi filmmakers had taken off at noon Feb. 18 from the headquarters of the Iraqi Independent Film Center on Al-Rasheed Street, heading toward the National Theater. They were accompanied by a folk music band to celebrate the 6th anniversary of the center and the 12th year of independent Iraqi cinema.

The first Iraqi feature film to be made after the fall of the Baathist regime was “Ghayr Saleh” (“Invalid”), directed by Oday Rasheed. The movie was produced independently. Following that came British director Mohammed Darraji's “Dreams,” which tackles the chaos that spread in Iraq over the last three decades.

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