On February 1-2 the Göteborg International Film Festival in Sweden will host the Iraq Short Film Festival! Iraqi short films will be screened and the seminars Images of Iraq - Images from Iraq and The Current Situation of the Iraq Film Industry will take place at the Museum of World Culture in Göteborg. Among the participants are Nizar al Rawi, director of Iraq Short Film Festival and Mohamed Al Daradji, director of Ahlaam (Dreams), the Iraqi contribution to the Oscar for best foreign language film.
– The Iraiq Film Days are a uniqe opportunity for a Swedish audience to see the emerging Iraqi film. We want to support the Iraq Short Film Festival to make it possible for them to survive, says Mia Yngve, manager of Cinemix, the seminar programme at GIFF.

The sanctions against Iraq have made 35 mm film production impossible and the films being made today are mainly short films shot with DV camera. In September 2005 Nizar al Rawi and the Contemporary Visual Arts Society started the Iraq Short Film Festival at the Magic Lamp Movie Theatre in Baghdad. 140 films were screened – among them films by Iraqi and Kurdish film makers, and films from the Arab countries.

The Iraqi Film Days are part of the Göteborg International Film Festival’s seminar programme Cinemix. They are carried out with support from The Museum of World Culture, Folkuniversitetet, DI – University of film, radio, television and theatre, and Quantum Chain.

Pictures are available on www.filmfestival.org under Press/Images Archive For more information please contact Mia Yngve manager Cinemix, at +46 707-613804.
Göteborg Film Festival

Moira Sullivan, Nordic Correspondent