Iraqi Film Days: Creative, cinematic insights into the screenings

AMMAN — The Kingdom’s first-ever edition of the Iraqi Film Days launches today, presenting its Jordanian audience with distinctive films exploring life, culture, politics, and society, with a cinematic vision of Iraq.اضافة اعلان

The screenings, organized by the Royal Film Commission in collaboration with Cineiraq, include two feature films and a collection of short films in both Arabic and Kurdish. They will be shown at Rainbow Theater near First Circle in Amman, and admission is free of charge.

Here is a sneak peek at the two feature films being shown.


Europa (2021): Screening tonight at 7pmThis intense, direct, and poignant film chronicles the attempts of an Iraqi immigrant to enter Bulgaria via the Balkan route while avoiding the sweeping searches of the ruthless border police.

The first few shots of Europa show a series of posters outlining what some immigrants must do to enter the continent of perennial longing, escaping the doubtful realities of their respective homelands.

Pay a lot of money, risk being scammed and — if you can cross the border — face the threat of detainment or even massacre by your not-so-welcoming hosts.

We hear the bullets whizzing by, the grunts of others fleeing — some of whom fall in the attempt — and watch as our protagonist manages to advance despite it all

The opening scene shows just that: a group of people have reached the border between Turkey and Bulgaria. Darkness, nerves, and last-minute pleas for extra money cut to a mad zig-zag dash, a chase, an explosion of shooting.  

Like a midnight war film, the camera shows dizzying, desperate, and terrifying snapshots.

The protagonist is Kamal, an Iraqi teenager who manages to escape in the midst of the chaos. As he runs, the camera stays close to his face and his body; director Haider Rashid pushes viewers to join that flight. We hear the bullets whizzing by, the grunts of others fleeing — some of whom fall in the attempt — and watch as our protagonist manages to advance despite it all, thanks to a mixture of ingenuity and luck.

The continentSimple and effective, the film takes on extra levels of meaning from its title. Though the piece of the story portrayed seems to take place over a mere 24 hours, it is a slice that manages to represent, for many, the full European experience. It is, for them, Europe. The only Europe they know and, perhaps, the only one they will ever know.

The director provides nuance to this experience, placing the protagonist in more and more swampy terrain, both literally and figuratively — not only in terms of the nature of the locale or with the border patrols, but even in encounters with the strangers the young man meets on his wooded path.

Wounded, injured, hungry, and exhausted, Kamal carries the marks of immigration on his body and face. As the camera fastens on his countenance, we see his wounds, his tears, his sweat, even his snot. Entering this continent for him means submitting to beating, brutalization, mistreatment, and even the fears of others. A roadside scene shows the state of paranoia that pervades Bulgarian society concerning refugees; in this case, portraying something of European society in general.

Kurdish cinema is rich with cultural meaning, with its people united from several countries and realities — Turkey, Iraq, Syria, Iran.

Europa also reveals the double discourse swirling around the continent. Although some countries have always been more crude and direct when it comes to rejecting immigrants, the brutal reactions shown here bring to the fore that fracture between the humanist presentation of the continent (its solidarity speeches, its crumb subsidies) and its attitude towards the daily reality of refugees trying to enter.

As happens in other public fora (think the transfer of vaccines to the third world, or pandemic travel restrictions), words are one thing, and actions are another. This, too, is the case for Europe.

Europa was Iraq’s official submission to the 2022 Oscars Academy Awards for Best International Feature Film. It secured awards for Best Actor and Best Director at the Red Sea International Film Festival in 2021 and received nominations for awards at a number of other festivals, including the Hamburg Film Festival and the Seville European Film Festival. 



The Exam (2021): Screening on Wednesday at 7pmAs young Kurdish-Iraqi Rojin prepares for her university entrance exam, her older sister Shilan, disillusioned with an unhappy marriage, is determined to help her pass at all costs to secure her a more emancipated life.

However, the sisters soon find themselves embroiled in a deep web of corruption through their desperate efforts.

Kurdish cinema is rich with cultural meaning, with its people united from several countries and realities — Turkey, Iraq, Syria, Iran. For all its vibrancy, it still remains quite surreptitious and confidential outside the festival circuits.

One of the spearheads of the Kurdish film industry is the Iraqi-Kurdish screenwriter-director-producer Shawkat Amin Korki of The Exam, recipient of several international awards. This film is no exception in displaying his masterful directing work, alongside the remarkable talent of director of photography Adib Sobhani.

The single shortcoming of The Exam would be the performance of the two main actresses, who lack some experience, particularly against their male counterparts, including actor and director Hussein Hassan (Narcissus Blossom, 2006; The Dark Wind, 2016), who plays Shilan's husband.

But this weak point is overshadowed by Korki’s finesse in writing of the roles of the men who ­­— if they do not show themselves in their best light — are still not portrayed in a Manichean way. Like women, they are constantly under pressure, whether from society, economic situations — or even their wives.

The Exam is the official Iraqi submission to the 2023 Oscars’ Academy Awards for Best International Feature Film. It secured Best Feature Fiction Film and Best Actress at the London Kurdish Film Festival and the UNFPA Award at the Cairo International Film Festival. It was also awarded for Best Screenplay at the Tirana International Film Festival in Albania.


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