The Iran-Iraq war is often described as the 20th century’s longest war and its political ramifications arguably exist in Iraq to this day. Yet, its story is often overlooked.
In this animated film project, Sherko Abbas draws on his own childhood memories of the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, as well as using found images and animated footage originally broadcasted on national Iraqi TV programs during the war.
For Iraqis, the Iran-Iraq war was the start of consecutive catastrophes, bringing on an onslaught of wars that has prevented the people of Iraq from processing its inevitable traumas. With this work, Abbas seeks to bring the ignored history of the Iran-Iraq war back on a table and to give it a closer look from the perspective of a child.
After a visit to London’s Imperial War Museum in 2018, Abbas was struck by the display of a Soviet-made T55 tank, which had also been captured in Iraq during the 2003 US invasion. The tank became the catalyst for him to revisit his memories of the Iran-Iraq war, which dominated his childhood. In this work, he revisits the sirens that blared at school and Iraqi state television broadcast propaganda cartoons that glorified Saddam’s war efforts.
