“El Qwmra” film festival revives cultural life in Basra

Basra governorate, south of Iraq hosted  the second “El Qwmra” film festival, with 70 long and short movies representing 12 different countries. The manager of the festival, Sarmad Al-Tamimi said that, the festival contains films, short films, documentaries and animations, adding that, there are 35 movie from Iraq and 35 others from other country like, Britain, Romania, Spain, Egypt, Qatar, UAE, Algeria, Morocco, Lebanon, Tunisia and Syria.

Al-Tamimi said that the festival lasts for 4 days with 3 arbitration committees of Arab and foreign directors to help deciding the winner. Cinema director, Faez El Canaan said that most of the participated movies share similar ideas like, war, terrorism, and childhood. These topics became like obsessions for most young directors.

In September 2016, Baghdad held an international film festival with the participation of 20 countries. It was the first of its kind since 13 years, as the cultural movement was down because of the security, political and economic situation, which made many Iraqi artists try to enrich the culture again through festivals.