Enab Baladi – al-Hasakah – In the city of Qamishli, the governorate of al-Hasakah, the fifth edition of the Spring Festival is to start today, Sunday (June 9), at 7:30 pm, as to last for four days.  

During the festival, several performances are to be presented, aiming at introducing the nationalities and the social components living in the area.

Ghandi Saado, the director of the Eridu Center for Civil Society and Democracy and a participant in the festival, said that the event seeks to highlight the cultural and civilizational diversity in the area of al-Jazira, especially with the vast arrays of ethnicities it incubates.

On the importance of the festival, Ghandi Saado told Enab Baladi that the event is organized to challenge all the problems experienced by the city and the battles of daily life, stressing that the festival is an attempt to provide the people with a space of hope.

The festival also attempts to enhance interaction between the area’s constituents through arts and culture, Saado said, and to break the barriers separating the area’s population, as well as helping the human introduce himself to other fellow humans in a right manner.

Arab, Assyrian, Syriac and Kurdish troupes are to participate in the festival.

Saado pointed out that the festival is to present exhibitions of plastic art and photography, a book fair and cultural discussion sessions.

The festival’s events will also include poetry seminars and concerts, as well as plays, features and documentary films.

The festival is organized by the Eridu Center for Civil Society and Democracy, Sanad Organization and Share Organization for Development.

Concerning the futuristic plans, Saado said that the organizers are basically trying to give the festival a periodic pace without any absence in the upcoming years, in addition to an attempt at increasing the number of participants through attracting new troupes and artists.

Saado pointed out that the festival’s administration has largely succeeded in exceeding the obstacles and overcoming the challenges that faced it, represented by shortage on funding, which caused the suspension of the festival’s events in 2016, not to mention the military action and the explosions that are taking place in the area periodically, thus, affecting the people’s attendance, in addition to the emigration of a massive number of young people and artists from the governorate.

Saado hopes that these obstacles disappear from the festival’s futuristic editions.