Madrid, Nov 27, IRNA -- The Iranian film director Bahman Qobadi attending the Gijon International Film Festival in northern Spain, addressing a press conference, underlined the need for regime change in Iraq without necessarily resorting to war.

According to the report released by the EFE Spanish News Agency, the Iranian cinematographer of Kurdish origin, has accused the US ruling politicians of contributing to further instability of the war-stricken region.

He added, "Given that the Middle East countries are looking forward to the prospect of peace, the change of Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq through peaceful means is inevitable."

Qobadi is attending the Gijon festival to present his latest film `Lost in Iraq', which was hailed by the audience once it was screened at the youth cinema hall of the festival on Tuesday night.

Qobadi's film is predicted to grab one of the festival's top awards.

The Iranian director said that he has produced the current film as a complement to `A Time for Drunken Horses'.

The latter film by him has sacked many international awards.

He is determined to work on the third and last episode of his trilogy in a Kurdish village on the Iran-Turkey borderline, despite remote possibility of obtaining the permission from the Turkish government for the purpose.

He added that after all he might have to proceed with directing his film illegally.

"I didn't mean to complain about violence in this film, but have rather tried to display the sense of humor among Kurds, which has helped them survive through catastrophic war," said Qobadi.

The Kurdish director underlined that he was not sponsored by Iran's government for the production of his films.

Qobadi stressed that he and Abbas Kiarostami, the other Iranian film director, have no problem for screening their films in Iran and that they normally use actors and actresses neither known in Iran, nor overseas.

... Payvand News - 11/28/02 ... --