Our River...Our Sky Screens in Baghdad and Mosul on March 14

release date March 14 2022

Iraqi film Our River...Our Sky, by Maysoon Pachachi, screens at The Station Foundation for Entrepreneurship, Baghdad, on Monday, March 14. Simultaneously, it has another screening in Mosul. The screenings are part of a series of workshops and screenings held by Habibi Collective in collaboration with The Station Foundation, and funded by the British Council in Iraq between March 10 and April 3. between March 10 and April 3.

The screening in Baghdad will be held with the attendance of the film’s director Maysoon Pachachi , Irada Al-Jubori and the cast while the Mosul’s screening will be attended by the film’s director. A Q& A will be held after both screenings.

Recently, The film has had various screenings in Iraq, the country of production. These screenings were held at Franco Arab Film Festival in Baghdad and Slemani International Film Festival.

The film was shot between Sulaymaniyah (Fuad Jalal Rasheed - Masti Film Production Company), and Baghdad (Huda Al-Kadhimi -Ishtar Iraq Film Productions). The narrative in Our River…Our Sky (aka Kulshi Makoo in Arabic) is set against a background of sectarian violence in the last week of 2006, between Christmas and the Adha Eid. It tells the stories of ordinary Iraqis trying to live their everyday lives in Baghdad, the capital; despite unpredictable violent events, which put them in peril. Sara, a single mother and novelist, shocked into silence by the surrounding violence, has been unable to write one word of fiction. Shortly before the New Year, following unexpected news, Sara and her neighbors brace themselves for an uncertain future while trying to sustain a fragile sense of hope.

It’s also worth mentioning that the film had a successful tour across Iraqi festivals, the last of which was the Slemani International Film Festival. Landing its world premiere at the Sarajevo Film Festival, Our River...Our Sky previously won the $100,000 IWC Filmmaker Award at Dubai International Film Festival.The film was supported by prominent institutions in the Middle East, including SANAD Fund, Arab Fund for Arts and Culture (AFAC), and Doha Film Institute. The film was supported in Europe by CNC & Institut Francais ( France), British Film Institute, amongst others, and was awarded The $ 5,000 Cell Post Production award at Malmo Arab Film Festival Market Forum in 2020.

The film is written by Maysoon Pachachi who co-wrote it with Irada Al-Jubori. The cast includes Darina Al Joundi (as Sara), Basim Hajar, Meriam Abbas, renowned Iraqi actor Mahmoud Abo Al Abbas,Zaydun Salman Khalaf, Sami Al-Ali, Ahmed Hashimi, Labwa Arab, and Ali Al Kareem. The crew includes Production & Custom Designer Rayah Aasee, Assistant Director Haidar Hakim (Slemani), Assistant Director Ahmed Yassin Aldaradji (Baghdad). The film is scored by Ehsan Al Imam and Khayam Al Lami.

The production was initially developed by Oxymoron Films (UK) and Linked Productions (Kuwait) and made in co-production with its other main producers Les Contes Modernes (France) and Neue Mediopolis Filmproduktion (Germany). MAD Solutions handles the film’s distribution across the Arab world.

Maysoon Pachachi is a London-based filmmaker of Iraqi origin who studied philosophy at University College London and attended London Film School. She was a documentary and drama film editor and, since 1994, has worked as an independent documentary filmmaker, mostly making films set in the Arab world. Her films include Iranian Journey (2000), Return to the Land of Wonders (2004) and Our Feelings Took the Pictures: Open Shutters Iraq (2008). Open Shutters received a Jury Special Mention at Arab Film Festival Rotterdam.

Maysoon taught editing and directing in a number of countries and cities, including the UK, Palestine, Gaza, Al Quds,and Birzeit. In 2004, with her colleague Kasim Abd, she co-founded the Independent Film and Television College, a free-of-charge film-training center in Baghdad, whose students produced 17 short documentaries that were selected in regional and international film festivals.

Irada Al-Jubori is an Iraqi writer, researcher and women's rights activist who has received a master's degree from the Faculty of Fine Arts, and obtained a doctoral degree from the Faculty of Information, at the University of Baghdad. Her doctoral thesis was on the image of women in Iraqi cinema from 1946 to 1994. Before she co-wrote Our River...Our Sky, Al-Jubori collaborated with Maysoon Pachachi on a project called Open Shutters Iraq. This project was exemplified by a photo gallery and a bilingual book, and it became the focus of a documentary film by Maysoon Pachachi later on.