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At Arbil arts festival, 'Iraq is more than blood'
Amid deep-seated themes of suffering, Iraqi artists expressed a different face of their country through their creative work.
from the May 29, 2007 edition
Page 2 of 3
'Even in upbeat songs, a cry of pain'
In June 2006, Ziad Turki left his family in Damascus, where they had all fled earlier, to return to his native Baghdad at the height of a wave of sectarian killing to start a video blog project titled "Hometown Baghdad."
He was able to stay only until December. "The city could not embrace artists and people running around with cameras. It was about weapons and blood now. I felt that there was this passion to kill everywhere. I left. It made no sense to die and orphan my children," says Mr. Turki.
His colleague Haidar Helu, agrees that the streets of Baghdad are perilous for filmmakers. "The only way you can preserve your life is by cooperating with the militias," he says.
Turki and Mr. Helu, who now lives in both Damascus and Berlin, are trying to convince a German production firm to agree on Jordan, Syria, or Kurdistan as alternative locations to Baghdad for shooting an upcoming project.
Hamid al-Saadi, a singer and teacher of Iraqi maqam, which blends traditional musical sounds with operatic themes, has stuck it out in Baghdad after returning in 2005, but rarely performs because of the lack of security.
Dressed in the pinstriped suit and sidara (a hat worn by Iraqi gentlemen during the pre-Saddam monarchist era) befitting any serious maqam singer, Mr. Saadi smiles when asked about the sadness and pain that seems to cut through all forms of Iraqi art.
"In every song, even the upbeat ones, you hear the 'ah.' It's a cry from all the pain bottled up inside us," he says.
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