Iraq Nominates 'Europe' for Academy Award 2022

INA – BAGHDAD
 
Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Antiquities announced selecting the feature film “Europe” by Iraqi director Haider Rashid to represent Iraq in racing the Oscar for Best International Film for 2022.
 
“The competent independent committee voted unanimously in favor of the nomination of the film Europe by Iraqi director Haider Rashid, which is one of the five feature films supported by "Baghdad Grant to Support Iraqi Cinema, for the year 2021 provided by the Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Antiquities,” stated the Ministry in a statement received by the Iraqi News Agency (INA).
 
Hekmat Al-Baydani, the Academic, Film Producer and the head of the Cinema Department at the College of Fine Arts at the University of Baghdad chaired the Committee, and included a group of film specialists elites, Mahmoud Abu Al-Abbas, Alaa Al-Mafraji, Ahmed Thamer Jihad, Alaa Najm, Aisha Al-Douri, and Sahem Omar Khalifa, according to the statement.
 
The ministry added, "The selection of the film ‘Europe’ came as a culmination of the distinguished and positive path that this film has been through since its selection in the "Directors' Half Month" program at the previous session of the Cannes International Film Festival, during which it won the award of the ninth session of the Beatrice Sartori Prize awarded by the Independent Critics Association at the Cannes Film Festival, as it also won many awards, including the Silver Ribbon Award granted by the Italian Film Critics and Journalists Association, in addition to choosing it by the Italian Film Critics Association as the film criticism of the year 2021,”
 
Europe Film is the fifth feature film by the Iraqi director Haider Rashid, winner of many awards in many Arab and European festivals, including Dubai International Film Festival, Gulf Film Festival and Milan Festival, which was headed by the late international star, Rutger Hawar.
 
“The film won the Grand Prize at the Cairo Film Forum 2019, and in the same year won Milano Film Network Award, and ‘Europe’ was a joint Iraqi-Italian-Kuwaiti production as it was supported by the Iraqi Ministry of Culture, the Italian Ministry of Culture, the Film Foundation in the Italian province of Tuscany, and the Foundation for Culture Support and Arts "Afaq", and other film and cultural institutions,” included the statement.
 
‘Europe’ included a story of three tragic days in the life of the Iraqi young man Kamal, who is trying to reach Europe on foot across the Turkish-Bulgarian border and falls as prey to the Bulgarian border police and fascist gangs chasing immigrants and finds himself alone in a vast endless forest.