Reconstructing Iraq's Film Industry: Antonia Bird and Human Film in Jordan

When the United Nations imposed sanctions on Iraq in August 1990, the cinema industry went into steep decline. New equipment, film stock, and chemicals for film laboratories were forbidden under import rules and no new feature films were made until Mohamed Al Daradji's Oscar nominee Ahlaam in 2004. As producers Human Film prepare to make their second feature in the region, the British production company has traveled to Jordon to run a series of workshops to help train up the next generation of filmmakers in the region.

Supported by the Royal Film Commission of Jordan, the workshops will teach 23 filmmakers from both Iraq and Jordan the basics of directing, screenwriting, camera/technical, production and post-production. Next week the students will produce a film on 16mm or 35mm. The eight tutors include Antonia Bird (Priest, Face),  and experts from the UK, Portugal, The Netherlands, Iraq and Canada. One of the key stipulations is that each country provides at least two female trainees. Richard Lawson of Kodak Dubai has supplied all the filmstock while The Gate in Lebanon is helping with processing.
 
"Each group consists of 5 students and the Jordanian student acts as the translator for the teacher - this has really made groups reliant on each other and already strong bonds and friendships have been created." Human Film's Isabelle Stead told Netribution.  "It's amazing how much they are taking in". 

Human Film is a remarkable company focused human resilience at the heart of tragedy, and is made up of Iraqi-born Mohamed, producer/writer Isabelle and Daniel Evans. The Leeds-based outfit is testament to film and art's ability to cross boundaries, right down to the make-up of the company. Mohammed told me in an interview, soon to be published here:

"To be honest we don't put religion in there. But I am Muslim. Danny, he is Christian. Isabelle is half-Jewish. And we never think about religion, at the end of the day, what is religion but about human beings learning to live in peace? What Islam , Christian and Jewish religions say is the same. The ten commandments: don't kill, don't kill, don't steal, don't lie, don't talk about people - religion is about human beings. All the religions are the same. So when my friend Danny goes on Sunday to the church and prays to God and when I go on Friday to the Mosque, and on Saturday she goes to the synagogue it's the same thing... Religion is something private, it's about you and your God."

The two weeks workshop came about after Mohamed did a Sundance workshop in 2006 with the Royal Film Commission of Jordan and spoke with them exploring the possibility of a workshop. Isabelle then went to shoot a short film in Jordan and the company decided this would be a good way for Iraqis and Jordanians to work together.

Human Film's work Iraq, alongside it's sister company Al Rafidain is perhaps the most notable since Oliver Reed's appearance in The Great Question, which documented the 1920 revolt against British rule. Reed played the part of an arrogant British officer murdered by the mob in a nationwide revolt now regarded as one of the most important steps towards eventual Iraqi independence. More information on the history of Iraqi cinemacan be found in an interesting Guardian article.