The Film

So, what were the obstacles encountered by the INSO? was it able to survive and evolve? what was the position of the successive Governments of them? and what was the fate of its members?

The Iraqi National Symphony Orchestra documentary film presents a study of the Iraqi musical culture that was changing over the past years since the INSO formed early in the forties of the last century and to this day.

For many years back, Iraq was never been stable, as every couple of years, there were political issues, wars, military coups, and other internal and regional problems.

Those unstable conditions in addition to some internal social changes affected the musical culture in Iraq during the last seven decades.

The film discusses and shows how those obstacles reflected against the Iraqi National Symphony Orchestra and its members from a perspective of the classical music genre.

The film includes many interviews with prominent members in the INSO that tells their story of the Orchestra supported with many rare concert footage and old pictures.

Many rare concerts have been converted from old VHS video tapes into a digital format by the director of the film.

During the interviews shooting period, there were a lot of national electricity shutdowns, as this is the situation in Iraq.

There were a lot of noises and distortion because of the house power generators and big area generators that provide the power when the national electricity is down, getting those noises from the interviews was like hell.

A lot of shooting delays occurred because of the electricity shutdowns even when the power generation was there because sometimes the lighting becomes fluctuate and shooting an interview was impossible.

Another obstacle raised up during the interviews preparations which are the transportation, facing lots of traffic jams caused by military checkpoints even on the highways.

And the security situation takes a big part in the hard times, any time, anywhere we expect an explosion or machine gunfights.

Putting in mind that most of the INSO members I interviewed were living so far away.

Many professional foreign conductors have conducted the INSO since it’s inception, from Austria, Poland, East Germany, Hungary, and the Soviet Union, as well as a number of Iraqi conductors such as Abdul Razzaq al-Azzawi, Mohamed Othman Siddeeq, Mohammad Amin Ezzat, and Karim Wasfi.