The Marshes Kassem Hawal, 1976

In 1992, responding to uprisings against the socalled Gulf War, dictator Saddam Hussein ordered the uprooting of reeds and papyri in an area named Al Ahwar (the Marshes), and forced the people to the border with Iran. Then he dried the whole area destroying a five thousandyearold habitat. Just before doing so, he ordered all the negative and positive copies of my film to be burnt. Kassem Hawal