Baghdad Filmschool - How to survive as an independent filmmaker in Iraq

Landed in Baghdad

We have had a very good day today. I am traveling together with my producer who speaks fluently Arabic and has traveled to Iraq several times before. Her name is Esmeralda and she is based in Cairo. Baghdad looked much more smoother than we expected.  We arrived at Baghdad Airport around 12 o’clock. The big question of the day was: are we going to wear our bullet proof vests? We decided to put them on underneath our abaya (black overcoats). It looked very elegantly, nobody noticed anything. Our taxi driver thought we were mad, he had to laugh. He says it is much better now in Baghdad, only a few car bombs here and there. Nothing serious.

When I called Kasim on his mobile, he all of a sudden stood in front of me in the lobby of the hotel. He also thinks it’s going much better here. Nightlife is picking up, bars are opening until late at night, something nobody could imagine a year ago. Now you can find a liquor store on every corner of the street. It is really going well Kasim says, and most importantly, it stopped raining!

Tomorrow, we are going to visit him at his school. There will be 20 new students waiting for him, they all want to become a film maker. We can’t wait to meet with them……