SULAIMANI, Kurdistan Region—Sulaimani city is kicking off its first ever international film festival on Saturday, opening with a 6pm red carpet and screening of Black Horse Memories, a work from director Shahram Alidi. The festival will last four days and screen a number of local and international films.
Danar Omar, the organizer of the film festival, told Rudaw that the aim of the festival was “to bring cinema from the public sector to the private sector and this was our first step.”
“The government and authorities should know this, that cinema belongs to the private sector, so thankfully all this was arranged with the funding of the city’s businessmen.”
Rudaw Media Network is a sponsor of the event and its reporting crews in the city will be covering the festival, and carrying scenes from film screenings and official receptions to millions of Kurdish viewers around the world.
More than 50 directors, filmmakers and actors have been invited to the event.
Sulaimani city has hosted many festivals in the past, including the European Union film festival, but this is the city’s first international film festival, which veteran Kurdish actor Abdull Hamajwan hoped “would become an annual ritual in the city.”
“This will introduce Sulaimani and its cinema to the world,” Hamajwan told Rudaw. “This is the first step and no first step is without flaws, but we have done our best to make this festival an annual ritual. This is for the city’s artists, the people of Sulaimani and all Kurds.”
Hamajwan said that the festival has been organized in the midst of a financial crisis that has gripped the Kurdistan Region for more than two years, but noted that as the capital of culture and art, such events must continue in Sulaimani.
“Life and the times are hard today but it has to go on and that is why we latched onto this project,” he said. “Past crises and hardships have never affected art in this city and it will continue the same for good.”
The festival’s opening film Black Horse Memories which also featured at Duhok Film Festival is about a group of young teachers trying to teach Kurdish language in Turkey where the language is banned. They print and distribute textbooks secretly away from the eyes of the authorities.
