MOSUL, Iraq: A budding Iraqi filmmaker yells “action!” as an actress clambers over rubble in Mosul’s Old City, proud students of a nascent film school in the former jihadist bastion.
Mosul still bears the scars of the brutal reign of the Daesh group, who overran the northern Iraqi city in 2014 and imposed their ultraconservative interpretation of Islamic law.
They destroyed everything from centuries-old churches to musical instruments, before being routed in a devastating battle in 2017.