Iraq’s Film Industry Hits Bottom - Al-Monitor: The Middle Eastʼs leading independent news source since 2012

Ali Abdulameer

Ali Abdulameer

Oct 24, 2013

An Iraqi man sells tickets at the Atlas Cinema in the Iraqi city of Basra on May 27, 2003. Basra's cinemas closed this month after threats from radical Muslims but reopened on Tuesday, although they are showing only action and Arabic films and not the more popular "romance" movies. - RTXLZXN — An Iraqi man sells tickets at the Atlas Cinema, Basra, May 27, 2003. — REUTERS

عربي

An Iraqi man armed with an AK-47 stands guard in front of a cinema in
Baghdad, May 23, 2003. Shi'ite conservative muslims have warned cinemas
not to play erotic movies. A month after Saddam's fall, theaters have
already started to show European, Turkish or American movies containing
nudity, but are feeling the pressure from clerics to stop airing them.
REUTERS/Jamal Saidi

JD/WS - RTRO57Y

Iraqi Ministry of Culture Curtails Performing Arts

Young Iraqi filmmakers break taboos

Omar al-Jaffal

A resident walks at the entrance of a cinema in Baghdad April 26, 2011. Iraq once had 82 cinemas, 64 of them located in the teeming capital, home to about 7 million of Iraq's 30 million people. One by one, they closed during the Saddam era, when the government controlled the selection and importation of films, until only five remained at the time of the invasion. The insurgency that followed and killed tens of thousands of people made Iraqis afraid of being in public places and crowds. They chose the relati

Iraqi Kurdistan Seeks Cinema Revival

Abdel Hamid Zebari

Abdel Hamid Zebari

A visitor looks at portraits of late Franco-Lebanese film director Maroun Baghdadi and pictures from his movies at the venue of an exhibition dedicated to his memory in Beirut on December 12, 2023, as Lebanon commemorates the 30th annivesary of his death in an accident at the age of 43. (Photo by ANWAR AMRO / AFP) (Photo by ANWAR AMRO/AFP via Getty Images)

Lebanon's resistance through culture: Return of Beirut’s Metropolis Cinema

Rodayna Raydan

In Boqaata, reporting on culture