Vice President of the Iraqi Artists Syndicate actress, Awatif Naeem revealed her last paly “Smell of War”, a joint work between Iraq and Tunisia that will be displayed at the National Theatre.
During an interview with “Arab Today” said that, the play discusses the idea of political, religious and social conflict in Iraq and the Arab region and its results that led to terrorism, extremism and wars. She added that, the play uses modern techniques regarding the display, as the director tried using digital technology and worked on the content and the appearance, combing all that with outstanding performance for the actors without losing the Iraqi and Arabic identity.
Awatif also presented another play titled “Women Parliament” where all its participants were women with secondary roles for men. All of the characters of this play were based on real people from the parliament, as she believes the theatre true role is to educate people and criticize others. This play faced problems during its display, as someone shut down the electricity, which made Awatif thinks of other solutions but all of them were refused. Awatif claimed that this incident has nothing to do with the electricity and they only wanted to stop this play, adding that, whenever someone tries to speak about the government corruption, all the concerned parties try their best to stop these attempts.
She expressed her resentment over the Iraqi artists’ status, as many of them suffer from health problems but they don’t have insurances and the Syndicate can’t help them because of its financial problems. She praised these artists, who dedicated their lives to enrich the Iraqi artistic movement, asking the Minister of Culture, Tourism and Antiquities Farid Rawanduzi to provide them with financial support and the treatment they need.
Awatif Naeem is a writer, director, actress, and critic to many theatre events and won dozens of awards. She is married to director and actor, Aziz Khayoun and chose to live in Iraq despite all the wars and troubles. She doesn’t prefer a particular artist, as each one has his own unique talent, but she was deeply influenced by all the characters she met inside and outside Iraq. She also believes that, writing is overlapping worlds, each world tells a different story and represent a particular case, and this story must speaks to people’s souls.
She is full aware of her own failings and she is always working on fixing them. She also sees theatre as a way of building humans and educating them through culture, consciousness. She believes theatre to be a school or a university that gives life and thoughts and it is always oppressed because it fights against dictatorship, and she wishes to build her own theatre one day.
She urged to hold on to culture as it is the first attacked area to weaken any country, and history always remains alive in the minds of its students, as they can burn paper, but they can’t burn memory. She also believes that, art is not only for the elite, but it expresses the society and its people. The art’s main goal is to change not to be changed.
She stressed that, Iraqi women aren’t fairly treated especially in drama, theatre and other artistic works, but there are many women who are capable of leadership in parliament or in any other public offices. She faced many troubles when she decided to enter the acting field, her family disowned her and her sister, but she fought until she made a name for herself, and when her family saw the change they reconnected. She established Children's Theater in 1996 in "Cinema and Theater Department”, where she presented the first play for children.
She thinks that, the Iraqi art is being oppressed, and since 2012 there has been a rise in the Iraqi dramas, but these dramas aren’t well marketed, not because their quality but because they only focus on a particular era from Iraq political history. The Iraqi cinema is also suffering, but some young people are trying to change this status, and trying to make some movies that will help to revive the Iraqi cinematic history.