Kuwait’s first film on invasion to make debut
KUWAIT: Kuwaiti cinemas today will launch public screenings of “Swarm of Doves”, the Gulf state’s first feature-length film about the 1990 invasion of the state by Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. The film is “inspired by true events” that occurred during the seven-month occupation, producer Sheikha Intisar Salem Al-Ali Al-Sabah told AFP during a screening for the press. “These are stories of people who defended Kuwait at that time,” Sheikha Intisar said. She said “the aim of the film is not to create any grudge but to highlight the brotherhood, tolerance and unity Kuwaitis experienced during the invasion”.
The film, directed by Ramadan Khasrouh and on the festival circuit since 2017, highlights moments of humanity that transcended the conflict between Iraq and its neighbor. In one scene, an Iraqi soldier is ordered by his commander to kill a Kuwaiti, but he refuses after remembering words from his father during childhood about the bonds between the Kuwaiti and Iraqi peoples. Another scene shows a Kuwaiti resistance fighter who forgives an Iraqi soldier during an armed confrontation, prompting the soldier to offer the man an escape from the army siege around his house. “The film does not bear any ill will to the Iraqi people,” actor Daoud Hussein told AFP. “The director and screenwriter made sure this film doesn’t put salt on the wound,” said Hussein, who plays the film’s protagonist resisting the invasion.