Kurdish director to make movie on independence referendum, Oct. 16 events

The movie is set to be screened this coming October 16.

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – A Kurdish film director is looking to cover one of the Kurdistan Region’s most contemporary historical events this year, producing a movie on the now-infamous events of October 16 and the 2017 referendum on independence.

“The film will be called ‘Hawa Frosh’ [meaning ‘Seller of air’] and will be about the referendum on independence for Kurdistan, the operation leading to the invasion of Kirkuk, and the events surrounding the sixteenth of October,” Soran Ibrahim told Kurdistan 24.

Ibrahim explained that a staff of professionals, local and international, is participating in the project. He added that modern techniques and high-tech equipment are being used to produce the movie.

He noted that Kurdistan 24 has agreed to sponsor the production and screening of the movie.

Ibrahim said the movie would be screened this coming October 16 and subsequently released at various events promoting the film.

The Kurdistan Region held an independence referendum on Sep. 25 in which 93 percent voted ‘yes’ to the question “Do you want the Kurdistan Region and the Kurdistani areas outside the region’s administration to become an independent state?”

The central government, in turn, reacted by taking over the Province of Kirkuk, and other disputed territories between Baghdad and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), on October 15. The following day, Kirkuk city fell to Iraqi security forces and the Iranian-backed Hashd al-Shaabi militias, also known as the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), who ousted the Kurdish Peshmerga forces which had previously fought alongside their Iraqi counterparts in the fight against the Islamic State (IS).

Editing by Nadia Riva