Young Iraqi Film Students Tell Their Own Stories From Mosul

In the war-ravaged northern Iraqi city of Mosul, 19 students are getting a chance to make their first short films Zaid AL-OBEIDI AFP
In the war-ravaged northern Iraqi city of Mosul, 19 students are getting a chance to make their first short films Zaid AL-OBEIDI AFP
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Young Iraqi Film Students Tell Their Own Stories From Mosul

In the war-ravaged northern Iraqi city of Mosul, 19 students are getting a chance to make their first short films Zaid AL-OBEIDI AFP
In the war-ravaged northern Iraqi city of Mosul, 19 students are getting a chance to make their first short films Zaid AL-OBEIDI AFP

A budding Iraqi filmmaker yells "action!" as an actress clambers over rubble in Mosul's Old City, proud students of a nascent film school in the former militant bastion.

Mosul still bears the scars of the brutal reign of the ISIS terrorist group, who overran the northern Iraqi city in 2014.

They destroyed everything from centuries-old churches to musical instruments, before being routed in a devastating battle in 2017.

Now, in a collaboration between the Mosul fine arts academy, a Belgian theater company and UN cultural agency UNESCO, 19 students are getting a chance to make their first short films.

"We live in Mosul, we know everything that happened," said 20-year-old theater student Mohammed Fawaz. "We want to show it all to the world through cinema."

Over a four-month course, students get a taste of everything from writing and shooting to acting and editing, according to Milo Rau, artistic director of Belgian NTGent theatre company who is behind the initiative.

Cameras and microphones in hand, the students are now hitting Mosul's streets to tell stories from their wounded city.

An actress dressed as a bride searches for her husband, only to discover he has stepped on a land mine.

Children and other residents crowd around curiously, while a neighbor refuses to turn off a noisy generator.

"We're losing the light," one of the instructors reminds students, as the December sun goes down.

Studying at the fine arts academy after the ISIS defeat was a bit like "passing from the Stone Age to modernity", said student Fawaz.

A fan of blockbuster movies like the Marvel and "Fast and Furious" franchises, Fawaz spent several of his teen years at home with no television or schooling under the extremists, learning English through books and thanks to a neighbor.

He and some classmates have already decided "to make films on Mosul and its war", Fawaz said.

After a month-long intensive session in October, the students have been trying out different roles as they pair up to make their films, said Belgian instructor, cameraman and filmmaker Daniel Demoustier.

All the equipment like lenses and sound gear brought in from abroad will stay, he said, with the goal for the students to "pick it up again and start making their films on their own".

Even if only three or four do so, "that will be a great success", he said.

Tamara Jamal, 19, said the course was her "first experience" with cinema.

Her short film tells the story of a young girl whose father beats her mother, while others have looked at issues including early marriage.

"Most of the students prefer to talk about stories where children play the main role," said Susana AbdulMajid, an Iraqi-German actress and teacher whose family is originally from Mosul.

Young people in the city "have gone through a lot of difficult and horrible things... there is a kind of longing for childhood, and also for a time of innocence", she said.

The students' nine works, each lasting up to five minutes, will be screened in Mosul in February before being presented to European festivals, said Rau.

His production of "Orestes in Mosul" -- an adaptation of Aeschylus's ancient Greek tragedy -- was produced in 2018-2019 with the participation of local students.

The goal now is to secure funding to keep the cinema department running, he said.

The next step will be "to have a small Mosul film festival... continuing what we started".



10 Endangered Black Rhinos Sent from S.Africa to Mozambique

Kenya Wildlife Services veterinarians and rangers rush to aid a sedated female black Rhinoceros that has been selected for translocation to the Segera Rhino Sanctuary from the Lake Nakuru National Park on June 07, 2025. (Photo by Tony KARUMBA / AFP)
Kenya Wildlife Services veterinarians and rangers rush to aid a sedated female black Rhinoceros that has been selected for translocation to the Segera Rhino Sanctuary from the Lake Nakuru National Park on June 07, 2025. (Photo by Tony KARUMBA / AFP)
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10 Endangered Black Rhinos Sent from S.Africa to Mozambique

Kenya Wildlife Services veterinarians and rangers rush to aid a sedated female black Rhinoceros that has been selected for translocation to the Segera Rhino Sanctuary from the Lake Nakuru National Park on June 07, 2025. (Photo by Tony KARUMBA / AFP)
Kenya Wildlife Services veterinarians and rangers rush to aid a sedated female black Rhinoceros that has been selected for translocation to the Segera Rhino Sanctuary from the Lake Nakuru National Park on June 07, 2025. (Photo by Tony KARUMBA / AFP)

Ten black rhinos have been moved from South Africa to Mozambique to secure breeding of the critically endangered animals that became locally extinct 50 years ago, conservationists said Thursday.

The five male and five female rhinos were transferred to Mozambique's Zinave National Park in a 48-hour road trip last week, said the Peace Parks Foundation, which took part in the translocation.

"It was necessary to introduce these 10 to make the population viable," communication coordinator Lesa van Rooyen told AFP.

The new arrivals will "secure the first founder population of black rhinos since becoming locally extinct five decades ago,” South Africa's environment ministry, which was also involved, said in a statement.

Twelve black rhinos had previously been sent from South Africa to Zinave in central Mozambique but the population was still not viable for breeding, Van Rooyen said.

Twenty-five white rhinos, which are classified as less threatened, were also translocated in various operations.

The global black rhino population dropped by 96 percent between 1970 and 1993, reaching a low of only 2,300 surviving in the wild, according to the International Rhino Foundation.

Decades of conservation efforts allowed the species to slowly recover and the population is estimated at 6,421 today.

Once abundant across sub-Saharan Africa, rhino numbers fell dramatically due to hunting by European colonizers and large-scale poaching, with their horns highly sought after on black markets particularly in Asia.

Mozambique's population of the large animals was depleted during the 15-year civil war, which ended in 1992 and pushed many people to desperate measures to "survive in very difficult circumstances", van Rooyen said.

Years of rewilding efforts have established Zinave as Mozambique’s only national park home to the "Big Five" game animals -- elephant, rhino, lion, leopard and buffalo.