Iraqi cinema finds new direction
Traveling in an old car, young Iraqi filmmakers had taken off at noon Feb. 18 from the headquarters of the Iraqi Independent Film Center on Al-Rasheed Street, heading toward the National Theater. They were accompanied by a folk music band to celebrate the 6th anniversary of the center and the 12th year of independent Iraqi cinema.
The first Iraqi feature film to be made after the fall of the Baathist regime was “Ghayr Saleh” (“Invalid”), directed by Oday Rasheed. The movie was produced independently. Following that came British director Mohammed Darraji's “Dreams,” which tackles the chaos that spread in Iraq over the last three decades.
Iraq's Independent Film Center is a dream come true for young people who aspire to make cinematic productions that do not follow any ideology nor succumb to the whims of the government, but instead reflect real life concerns, all the while meeting technical and international standards.
Source: Al Monitor
The situation in Yarmouk refugee camp has reached catastrophic levels
The situation in the Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp in Damascus, Syria, has reached catastrophic levels, according to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). It is still hard to properly estimate what exactly is going on in the camp, but reports by local activists suggest that a large part of the camp has been overrun by ISIS and Jabhat Al Nusra, an affiliate of Al Qaeda, who are both fighting Palestinian and Syrian militias in the camp. To make things even worse, the Syrian government has been bombing the area since Sunday.
Source: Global Voices
Lebanese wine recommendations for every personality
We all know that wine is the second best thing to come out of the Bekaa Valley. When you can't get your hands on the first thing, this will still do the trick.
The problem with asking a store clerk to help you pick out wine is that they’ll hassle you with tons of questions like, “Do you have a preference for the origin of the wine? What year would you like?” It’s like: no I don’t care where or how the grape grew up, I’m just trying to forget some of my life choices and buy the second cheapest wine available so you, dear stranger, think I have a shred of class and preference.
Seeing as how my only qualification for reviewing wine is the fact that I try to drink it on a daily basis, here are my Lebanese wine recommendations!
Source: Beirut.com
