Mandaeans, also known as Mandaean Sabians or simply as Sabians, are an ethnoreligious group who are followers of Mandaeism. They believe that John the Baptist was the final and most important prophet. They may have been among the earliest religious groups to practice baptism, as well as among the earliest adherents of Gnosticism, a belief system of which they are the last surviving representatives today. The Mandaeans were originally native speakers of Mandaic, an Eastern Aramaic language, before they nearly all switched to Mesopotamian Arabic or Persian as their main language.
Salam Pax is the pseudonym of Salam Abdulmunem, aka Salam al-Janabi, under which he became the "most famous blogger in the world" during and after the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Along with a massive readership, his site "Where is Raed?" received notable media attention. The pseudonym consists of the word for "peace" in Arabic (salām) and in Latin (pax). His was one of the first instances of an individual's blog having a wide audience and impact.
Live from Baghdad is a 2002 American television war drama film directed by Mick Jackson and co-written by Robert Wiener, based on Wiener's book of the same title. The film premiered on HBO on December 7, 2002, during the prelude stage of the Iraq War.
The Directors Guild of America Awards are issued annually by the Directors Guild of America. The first DGA Award was an "Honorary Life Member" award issued in 1938 to D. W. Griffith. The statues are made by New York firm, Society Awards.
Abu Ghraib is a city in the Baghdad Governorate of Iraq, located just west of Baghdad's city center, or northwest of Baghdad International Airport. It has a population of 189,000 (2003). The old road to Jordan passes through Abu Ghraib. The government of Iraq created the city and Abu Ghraib District in 1944.
Usama Alshaibi is an Iraqi-American independent filmmaker and visual artist.
Imagine is a wide-ranging arts documentary series first broadcast on BBC One television in 2003, hosted and executive produced by Alan Yentob. Most series consist of 4 to 7 episodes, each on a different topic. Episodes have been directed by, among others, Geoff Wonfor, Lucy Blakstead, Jill Nicholls, Roger Parsons and Zoë Silver.
Barbara Kopple is an American film director known primarily for her documentary work. She is credited with pioneering a renaissance of cinema vérité, and bringing the historic french style to a modern American audience. She has won two Academy Awards, for Harlan County, USA (1977), about a Kentucky miners' strike, and for American Dream (1991), the story of the 1985–86 Hormel strike in Austin, Minnesota, making her the first woman to win two Oscars in the Best Documentary category.
Brian Turner is an American poet, essayist, and professor. He won the 2005 Beatrice Hawley Award for his debut collection, Here, Bullet the first of many awards and honors received for this collection of poems about his experience as a soldier in the Iraq War. His honors since include a Lannan Literary Fellowship and NEA Literature Fellowship in Poetry, and the Amy Lowell Poetry Travelling Scholarship. His second collection, shortlisted for the 2010 T.S. Eliot Prize is Phantom Noise.
Bill Moyers Journal was an American television current affairs program that covered an array of current affairs and human issues, including economics, history, literature, religion, philosophy, science, and most frequently politics. Bill Moyers executive produced, wrote and hosted the Journal when it was created. WNET in New York produced it and PBS aired it from 1972 to 1976.
Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books is a book by Iranian author and professor Azar Nafisi. Published in 2003, it was on the New York Times bestseller list for over one hundred weeks and has been translated into 32 languages.
Wholphin was a quarterly DVD magazine running 15 issues containing a selection of short films which had little or no exposure elsewhere. The magazine was created by Dave Eggers and Brent Hoff of McSweeney's publishing house. It was named after the marine animal of the same name, a rare hybrid of a false killer whale and a dolphin, which highlights its unusual nature.
Al-Faw Palace is a palace located in Baghdad approximately 5 km from the Baghdad International Airport, Iraq. Former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein commissioned its construction in the 1990s to commemorate the Iraqi forces' re-taking of the Al-Faw Peninsula during the Iran-Iraq War. It was said that Saddam used the palace for duck hunting.
The Ridenhour Prizes are awards in four categories given annually in recognition of those "who persevere in acts of truth-telling that protect the public interest, promote social justice or illuminate a more just vision of society".
The cinema of Iraq went through a downturn under Saddam Hussein's regime. The development of film and film-going in Iraq reflects the drastic historical shifts that Iraq has experienced in the 20th century. The Iraq War which began in 2003 had an influence on many films being produced.
The 6th Golden Satellite Awards were given on January 19, 2002, at the St. Regis Hotel in Los Angeles, California.
Jamal Ja'far Muhammad Ali Al Ibrahim, known by the kunyaAbu Mahdi al-Muhandis was an Iraqi commander of the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF). At the time of his death, he was deputy chief of the PMF and regarded as one of Iraq's most powerful men.
A mandi, mashkhanna, or beth manda, is a Mandaean building that serves as a community center and place of worship. A mandi is traditionally built on the banks of a yardna, or flowing river.