Written by: Mahdi Abbas
After the success of the first two Iraqi films, which were produced with sisterly Egypt, a number of Iraqi Jewish money-owners thought of building a cinematic studio to produce Iraqi films. Indeed, this studio was built in the Al-Rasheed Camp area, and the production of his first film, Aliyah and Essam, began. A large group of Iraqi artists were gathered. For representation in this film (Ibrahim Jalal / Azima Tawfiq / Jaafar Al-Saadi / Fawzi Mohsen Al-Amin / Etidal Youssef / Ahlam Ibrahim / Salima Murad / Chirak / Abdullah Al-Azzawi Abdel Moneim Al-Jader / Akram Gibran – Sabiha Ibrahim – Yahya Faeq – Abdel Hadi Mubarak – Faleh Al-Zaidi – Safaa Muhammad Ali – Fawzi Mohsen Al-Hakim – Jaafar Al-Saadi – Chirac Surin)
The story of the film, the script and the dialogue were written by Anwar Shaul. A French director, cameraman and maquiere were brought in for the film. It was directed by Andre Chatan and directed by Jacques Lamarr. Editing was done by Joseph Francis, makeup by Monsieur Boris and decorator Abdelkader Tawfik. The duration of the film was 90 minutes. The film was shown at Roxy Cinema on 12-3. – 1949 and achieved a great public turnout, and it was shown in other cinemas in Baghdad and the provinces, and it was also shown publicly in Egypt.
The film is an adaptation of William Shakespeare’s famous play (Romeo and Juliet) with a Bedouin atmosphere.. The love story between him and Issam grows in the shadow of a fanatical tribal society, as Aliyah admires Issam and conceals her love in herself, and Issam reciprocates the same feeling, as the members of the tribe convey to each of them the virtues and personality of each. Their admiration for each other deepens, but the existence of deep tribal problems between Ali and Issam’s tribes due to revenge… .. leads to quarrels between the two tribes, and thus the film ends with the sudden death of Issam and his beloved Aliyah, where Issam is killed by one of the tribe’s sons, which pushes the girl to commit suicide. to catch up with him!!
In fact, I searched a lot in all the famous film sites in America and France to get to know the director Andre Shatan and the cameraman Jacques Lamarr, but unfortunately I did not find any trace of them, but I found a similar name, Andre Shoman, who is the director of photography in the famous Lebanese movie The Seller of the Rings – 1965, the first of the channel’s films. The big Fayrouz,, God knows it might be him first!!!
