The Marshes

At a glance

The Marshes, is a 1976 Iraqi movie, directed by Kassem Hawal. with a runtime of 45 minutes.

Overview

The Marshes is an Iraqi documentary by director Kassem Hawal, originally shot in 1975 as a 45-minute film about the Iraqi Marshes — a vast wetland ecosystem stretching across two-thirds of southern Iraq and considered a living extension of Sumerian civilization spanning over seven thousand years. When the Iraqi regime began systematically draining the marshes in 1985, it triggered an environmental and humanitarian catastrophe: tens of thousands of residents disappeared, wildlife went extinct, and the land was poisoned. The government destroyed the original footage, but Hawal preserved a copy, ensuring this irreplaceable record of a vanishing world survived.

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