Baghdad: The launch of the “Cinematheque Iraq” project was announced in the capital, Baghdad, which aims to protect, restore, and digitize the Iraqi film archive, under the supervision of the Iraqi Visual Memory Committee in the Prime Minister’s Office.

According to National Iraqi News Agency, the French Ambassador, Patrick Durel, stated during the official ceremony to launch the project, “The famous Iraqi film Saeed Effendi arrived in the capital, Paris, a few days ago and will undergo modern visual restoration and digitization operations, in preparation for its participation as the first Iraqi film in the screenings of the new session of the Cannes International Film Festival in the middle of this year.” He added that rehabilitation operations are currently underway for the Iraqi film “Alia and Issam” to be suitable for direct cinema screening, emphasizing the full Iraqi cooperation to preserve the archive of the Iraqi cinematic and television memory for successive generations.

This project is supported
by the French Embassy in Iraq and is being implemented by Expertise France, a French agency specialized in designing and implementing international technical cooperation projects. The “Cinematheque Iraq” project aims to restore and preserve more than 100 Iraqi films by training Iraqis in visual archive management and preservation techniques.

The project includes helping Iraq build a specialized infrastructure to preserve the visual archive in Iraq, in partnership with the Hassan Ibn al-Haytham Higher Committee for Iraqi Visual Memory. The goal is to preserve the national cinematic heritage and enhance Iraq’s visual memory through the use of advanced digitization and restoration techniques.

Additionally, the project seeks to make these films available to future generations, contributing to enhancing cultural awareness and highlighting Iraq’s cinematic history at the local and international levels.