Iraqi cinema history in Brief

By Mahdi Abbas *

- The first Iraqi cinema release (Cinematograph) in Iraq on Sunday night July 26, 1909 in Dar Al Shifa in Karkh
- The first cinema established in Iraq in 5/9/1911 which is (bloky) Cinema in Almaidan square
- And then Cinema Central 1920, Alwatani 1927, Royal 1929, then Zawraa and Alrasheed and Alhamraa, then Alhilal 1932 with a special wing for families, Roxy 1932, Ghazi 1937, then Taj and Diana, the Alnujoom 1947, then Metro and Alfirdaws and Hollywood, then Alkhayam, Faisal, Regent in the fifties, then Alnasr, Sinbad, Semiramis, Atlas, Babylon in the sixties. Currently stayed 4 cinemas decomposed in Baghdad, Semiramis, Alkhayam, Sadoun, Alnajah and closed all round in Basra and Mosul.
- In 19/2/1931 introduced the first talking film in the Alwatani Cinema, film (the king of music)
- In 1943 the first company to produce films founded and known as the (company Movies Baghdad, Ltd.), the most prominent founders of this company are: Mehdi Bassam (dealer) and Hassan Hosni (owners) and Nasser Naim (dealer and factory owner), with a capital of (15) thousand dinars raised them to subscribe (12,600) shares and select the share price of one Dinar, but the company failed to produce movies, and did not succeed in film production film work in Iraq continue importer until the end of World War II

Zawra'a cinema in 1950

- The first Iraqi film produced in 1946 a Joint Iraqi-Egyptian film (Son of East)
- The first Iraqi film produced colored in 1962, a film (Nebuchadnezzar)
- Shorter Iraqi film is a film (life taught him/ 1958), duration 35 minutes
- The longest Iraqi film (clash of loyalities/ 1983) and duration of 170 minutes
- The first Iraqi government cinematic establishment set up in 1959 (cinema and theater office)
- The most Arab successful film commercially in Iraq is film (Antar and Abla / 1945), where the show continued six consecutive months in cinemas
- The most successful world film view in Baghdad is film (mavi mavi) for the artist Ibrahim Tatalas where in 1988 a period thirty weeks releasing at the Atlas cinema
- The first studio built in Baghdad is Baghdad studio which was created in 1948
- The first Iraqi film fully filmed in Iraq is film (Allia& Issam / 1949)
- The first Arab film filmed in Iraq is film (The Adventures of Antar and Abla / 1948), directed by Salah Abou Seif which was filmed in the city of Amarah

From "Saed Afandi" - the Iraqi long fiction -

- The first global film filmed in Iraq is film (The omen/ 1972), which was filmed in the province of Nineveh, in which the late artist Ibrahim Jalal acted
- The first Iraqi film released by Iraq television after the display in movie theaters is a film (Mercy me / 1958)
- The first Iraqi film displays commercially outside Iraq is film Allia and Essam who released in Egypt in 1950
- The first Iraqi film receives an award from a film festival is film (the guard) who won silver tanit of the Carthage Film Festival in 1968
- The first joint Iraqi production with an Arab country is the Son of East/ 1946 with Egypt
- The first joint Iraqi production with non-Arab state is Tashir&Zuhra/ 1952 with Turkey
- The first Iraqi Kurdish film is Nargis Bride film of kurdistan directed by Jafar Ali on 1991
- The first animated Iraqi Arabic  film is (Princess and the river / 1982)
- The number of films produced from 1946 until the year 2012 (175) Iraqi films
-Iraqi  Television produced fourlong feature films (Allawha / Pendulum / Under one sky / Alarkat)
- most of the Iraqi film production and specially in recent years depended on co-production with the number of countries involved in the production of 25 countries, including six Arab states and 19 foreign
- More Arab countries are the United Arab Emirates with seven films and more foreign countries is France with 12 films

From "Alharis -The Guard " -Long fiction , by K . Hawal

- Iraq produced eight films in common with Germany and seven movies with Britain and five films with Iran and four films with both Egypt and Turkey, the Netherlands, Italy and two films with Lebanon, America, Sweden, Norway, Palestine, and one movie with Syria, Kuwait, , and Finland, Austria, Australia, Japan, Spain, Switzerland and Hungary
- The public sector represented by the Department of Cinema and Theater Produced 44 long feature films
- Kurdistan produced 52 long feature films
- Common goal sector company Babel Film and television production produced eight films
- Most number for direction is director Mohamed Shukri Jameel (eleven films)
- Most number for acting is Sami Kaftan (23 films)
- Most number for D.O.P is Nihad Ali (18 films)
- Most number for editing is the Sahib haddad(16 films)
- Most number for music authoris Abdul Amir Al-Sarraf (14 films)
- Eight films did not show to the public for reasons ranging from technical, economic and political, namely, (Hobet Almzloom/ Sultana / happiest days / Baghdad nights / years of life / travel in the night / countdown / Hafr albatin)
- Iraqi film three times with three titles (1965 presentation entitled Family miserable 1967 presentation entitled Ghazala and 1993 distributed videotapes entitled Ghazala and fisherman
- Famous incident of an  Iraqi film with censorship was with the movie( houses in the alley) where the censorship objected to the scene ultimately rejected filmmaker Qasim Hawal replacing the end another outlet The incident was one of the causes of migration of the director out of Iraq
- The most successful film in terms of revenue and compared in time is (Fitna &Hassan&), which cost eight thousand dinars, and revenues were forty thousand dinars
- Iraqi cinema did not know star but Qasim Almallak who was having his name enough for people wanting to film (Faeiq marry / love in Baghdad / six six / and groom but / 100% / Suppose yourself happy)

From "Addamion" - long fiction by M.S Jameel

- The only Iraqi film who introduced commercially in all the Arab countries is film Qadisiyah and even countries that do not have cinemas presented in the form of television episodes for half hour per episode
- The Cannes Film Festival the biggest film festival in the world witnessed the first name of Iraq twice in 2005 through the film kilometer zero and 2009 through the second film whispered with the wind
- The only Iraqi filmmaker who won the title of best director in the Middle East from the U.S. magazine Variety is Mohammed Darraji
- Not only making films the Iraqi city of Baghdad has portrayed some films completely in the Iraqi provinces .. For example Baquba (hour train 7) Basra (researchers) Mousel (another day)
- Iraqi movies have been directed by 77 iraqi directors first of them (Haider Alomer) and last (Hisham Zaman) and seven directors Egyptians (Ibrahim Helmi / Ahmed Badrakhan / Ahmed Kamel Morsi / Fouad Thami / Tawfik Saleh / Salah Abou Seif / Ibrahim Abdul Jalil) and French (Andre Chuten) and three turkish directors (Lutfi Akkad / Khalil Uysal / rozgar Savata) and ten directors from Iran (Bahman Ghobadi / Jamil Rostami / Ali Dhabihi / Shirin Jahani / Shahram Alida / Ibrahim Saidi / Taha Karimi / Fariborz Kamaikar / Ali Reza HE Nia / Nahid Ghobadi / Bijan Zmanbera and U.S. director (David Fine)
- Of between of 77 Iraqi directors there was two women only ..Khairiya Mansour (six to six and 100%) and Kurdish director Vian Mayi (Doz) and two Iranian women Shirin Jahani (stars are colorless at day) and Nahid Ghobadi (111 women))

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Mahdi Abbas

From BIFF Team