The Tank of my Sketchbook Trailer (2021)

01 January 2021 7 mins

In this animated film project, Sherko Abbas draws on his own childhood memories of the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, as well as using found images and animated footage originally broadcasted on national Iraqi TV programs during the war. After a visit to London’s Imperial War Museum in 2018, Abbas was struck by the display of a Soviet-made T55 tank, which had also been captured in Iraq during the 2003 US invasion. The tank became the catalyst for him to revisit his memories of the Iran-Iraq war, which dominated his childhood. In this work, he revisits the sirens that blared at school and Iraqi state television broadcast propaganda cartoons that glorified Saddam’s war efforts.

Watch the official The Tank of my Sketchbook 2021 trailer in HD below.