Filmmakers in Iraq say they will reprise the Baghdad International Film Festival which was launched in 2005 but had to be suspended due to soaring violence in Iraq.
The Association of Iraqi Filmmakers Without Borders announced Monday that it would re-stage a highly popular festival of short films which was held at the Al-Mansour hotel in central Baghdad back in 2005.
Locations for the screenings this year have yet to be finalized. The Al-Mansour has been ruled out after a suicide bombing killed 12 people at the hotel's foyer in June during a meeting of tribal leaders.
Dr. Abdul Basit Salman, one of the organizers, says most films will come from Egypt, Jordan and Iran. Egypt's High Institution for Cinema (HIC) will be contributing 27 films while Iraq's television channels One and Two will also provide some content.
"Most of [the HIC films] deal with students' non-conventional thoughts and trends. They are mainly experimental short films produced by HIC students as graduation projects."
The festival will be showing films in DVD format only, so most of the films, which are in 35 mm or 16 mm formats, will have to be converted.
Iraq had a thriving film industry, dating back to the 1940s and peaking during the 1970s and 1980s. Theatres started to go into decline after the 1991 Gulf War due to sanctions so cinemas did not have access to new films and new technology. It got worse after the 2003 invasion. Many cinemas were burned and shut down.
The 2005 festival, held in September, lasted six days and screened 58 locally-made short videos.
This year's festival is slated to run from Dec. 16 to 19.
The country has been gripped by sectarian violence since a Shia shrine was bombed in Samarra in February 2006, making an annual festival a difficult proposition.
Entertainment has come to a standstill in Baghdad with most movie houses standing empty.
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