Mutaz Abdulrahman, project coordinator of the festival: 

"The city of Mosul also known for its diversity. In Iraq there are four languages. Two official languages, Arabic and Kurdish, Assyrian that is spoken by a smaller community, and Turkmen who also have their own language. In Mosul, all the four languages are present and also different ethnic and religious groups. We thought about a festival there, because the city has been destroyed in 2017 and many people left, who are now slowly coming back and started rebuilding, to revive everything. It will be a European Iraqi festival. We have already 10 European musicians who will come for the festival to Mosul. It will be 5 days to meet musicians from Iraq and play together, jam together, also in the streets, also with the people in the streets, and the last 3 days will be concerts, everyday 2,3 concerts from different groups. We will have talks, young music students in Mosul will get trainings, and we will also have a competition with prizes for the young musicians.   Half of the city is still destroyed. But there is a local government, there are people, there is life there. It is not like when I say half of the city is destroyed, the other half there are schools, there are governments, there are universities, there is life. But of course, because helf of the city is destroyed, it is a challenge to find venues. There is no theatre or other suitable venues, its not easy. Thats why we work with local partners, and also with UNESCO. Because UNESCO they are working there especially on old houses. It is not easy of course, it takes a lot of energy and time to bring all of this altogether, of course content wise it is sometimes not easy to explain everything to them, it is very important to convince them to be with us us, to give us the space. 

We are not doing cultural export, what we ask our partners for is a real exchange. And another aim is, the invited European musicians will not play their music, they will play the music of Mosul. The whole focus is on the city."

Mutaz Abdulrahman: 

"We don’t use the word peacebuilding, but of course our planning aims to improve the situation of our audiences and partners.  

In Iraq, tension and conflict is still there, because the politicians are playing this game of keeping the situation like this: “We are the best people of the world”, and all leaders say the same, and like this everybody is trying to control their own community -because of elections, for their own benefits. But actually, in reality it is not like this here: If there are no elections, in normal daily life, people of the different communities talk to each other, they are friends, they are married to each other. 

We do believe that art and culture in general can play a big role in peacebuilding, but we are not doing the festival just for peacebuilding. For us it is more important to really connect people, not like “let’s do cross-culture, lets love each other”! No, I don’t care. If you don’t like each other, don’t like each other. 

When we are connecting musicians, we are not forcing them, “please come and play together”, no, we as Goethe Institute prepare the conditions, we connect you, we invite you, we give you a space to try something. If it works, then continue, if not, then not. For us the real connection is important. In all our programmes. As Goethe Institute, we just explain to people that it could also look like this. If you are not convinced, then this is not our problem.

Cultural mobility is very important for us, this is why we organise activities in different cities, locations, and places.  Since two years we are also organising a festival in Halapca. There, it is also about brining musicians together, not just musicians from Halapca, but also musicians from Germany, Spain, other cities in Iraq, as well as from Kurdistan region. To do something together. 

If you like it, do it. If you don’t like it, don’t do it. You don’t have to do it in the way that we propose. But we see that it works. Musicians always find connections. They build contact, stay in contact, we have many many examples - and not only musicians but also other artists, painters, movie directors, etc. And out of one project grow new ideas, because we connected them. And they say: "Ok, why should I don’t like this person?"

The singularity of a festival taking place for a short amount of time requires it to be accompanied by other activities/offers. Before of organising or planning a festival in this kind of context, we think of what comes after, because if you come even if it is just for a night, in a city like Mosul, people come and they will have expectations. They will ask us, what about tomorrow, what about after. We should be ready for this. If we are able to continue our activities after, then it is ok – we can organise a festival there. But if not, then better not to do it at all. It is a bit like with a child and the hope. I will bring you something, or you bring a child somewhere nice then it will have the hope that it will have it again or forever and it is very bad if you say look and this is just for one time. We are organisaing the festival for the city and the artists of the city and to attract more musicians and stakeholders. In a festival format you attract more people to engage, more than to involve them in regular project that we have. "