The Map’s Legend: MOSUL, MY HOME
A Review of Adalet R. Garmiany’s Award-Winning Film
By Catherine Filloux, playwright/librettist and activist
Kurdish artist/activist Adalet R. Garmiany produced my play The Beauty Inside, in Northern Iraq, Kurdistan Region, in the Kurdish language, with the organization he founded, ArtRole. My play is about the attempted honor killing of a fourteen-year-old girl, her mother and woman lawyer. I was fortunate that Adalet introduced me to my play’s Kurdish translator Nawzad Shwani on a prior visit to Northern Iraq and subsequently introduced me to well-known Kurdish actress/director Gaziza Omer and her colleague, Peshro Hosaen, who directed the production. Actors were from a variety of places in Iraq, and Adalet carefully nurtured this multicultural theater piece. A few years later I am fascinated when Adalet shares the news about the film he wrote, directed and produced, MOSUL, MY HOME, winner of the NETPAC Prize, given at the Toronto International Film Festival to a film from the Asia-Pacific region. Adalet feels that when one first hears the name of the city, Mosul, one immediately thinks of the humanitarian crisis, chaos, devastation and slow recovery. However, Adalet wants to tell the story of Mosul beyond the stereotypes, examining the aftermath of war, the environment, communal places, institutions, as well as the lives of the city’s inhabitants.
“A journey into the peaceful, abundant and warm-hearted past of Mosul, now in ruins,” says Adalet’s award citation. I ask Adalet more about this journey and what his relationship is to Mosul. He explains that Mosul is the center of the Nineveh Governorate in Northern Iraq, the second largest Iraqi city after the capital, Baghdad. It is at a crossroads, linking the east with the west and is bordered by Syria. After the British occupation of Iraq in the 1920s, it was one of the oil export centers and its agriculture expanded and diversified after the completion of irrigation projects on the Mosul Dam and the Great Zab River. Adalet says, “For many years I have wanted to return to Mosul. Yet instability and destruction from decades of war, and my subsequent displacement and exile, have prevented my homecoming to the city. This is where my artistic journey first began in 1990, when I joined Mosul’s Institute of Fine Arts.”
The documentary’s main character, Mohammad Al Shabaki, is what Adalet calls “a complex human being living a simple life.” His character is drawn as one who is filled with memories of life in Mosul but carries the responsibility of sharing these experiences with the world. Mohammad’s entire body is covered in wounds. His worn-out bare feet are a map of a life filled with hardship and intense pain. His actual feet are also the legend for how we travel the film’s map.
“In September 2018, after twenty-nine years, I returned to this beautiful city I once knew,” Adalet says. “This was nearly a year after the city was retaken from the grip of ISIS. I saw a mixture of joy and apprehension among the residents. In the aftermath the city was left with a combination of smells: dead bodies, dust and the taint of human conflict. To commemorate this visit I prepared an elegy to Mosul, and Nineveh at large. MOSUL, MY HOME is the title of my spiritual, historical, political, social and cultural return.”
Adalet hopes to have painted his main character Mohammad as a portrait of human tragedy, but also of perpetual optimism invoking empathy in the viewers. As a Mosul native Mohammad shares with the viewer stories from his life and daily observations of Moslawi cultural and religious history. “I create peace, coexistence, hope despite the devastation of war, through the unique technique of the film,” says Adalet. “The film cannot be recognized as a single genre, which has caused controversy among the film industry.” While some have called it an experimental film, others have labeled it a feature film, or documentary. “Personally, I didn't exactly follow a typical film structure,” says Adalet. “I used visual arts, sound and music, writing, mysticism, video art, performance and, of course, general background knowledge. I envisioned the film despite the devastation of war through this unique technique.”
Nina Kochelyaeva, Russian NETPAC jury member, says, “All selected films were of very high quality and told stories that would have touched the heart of every viewer. But, despite the wide selection of feature films, the jury unanimously gave preference to the documentary MOSUL, MY HOME. This artistically outstanding work uses techniques invented by the author to create additional energy for the film. Following the hero's feet, plunging into the shadow of his image on the wall, contemplating the once prosperous, but now almost destroyed shrines, the viewer, on the one hand, touches upon the former greatness of Mosul, and on the other, realizes the monstrous consequences of the war. This documentary journey is filled with love and compassion for its city and is an eloquent manifestation of the power of art, memory and humanity.” Learn more here.