Safwat Jarah (Kurdish: Safwet Cerah) is a Kurdish director, screenwriter, playwright, filmmaker and actor. He was born in 1935 in Koya, South Kurdistan. He died on 19-07-2010. His father was a health worker in Koya and Erbil in the 1920s. He performed surgery in Koya and Erbil. Safwat Jarah has worked in theater and filmmaking in Iraq and South Kurdistan and has been called the general of Kurdish theater because of his character.
He graduated from the theater department of the Baghdad Institute of Fine Arts in 1959. He was enrolled to study theater in Italy, but could not go abroad to study due to the poor health of his parents.
Safwat Jarah was born into a middle-class family. His father, Ali Mohammed Jarah, worked for the Erbil Health Directorate in the 1920s and 1930s. He received a health license from the government for his private clinic. As a doctor, he performed minor surgeries on patients. He also worked with Dr. Abdul Razzaq, Dr. Salim Maslawi and the then head of health in Erbil, Dr. Osman Ahmad Agha. Safwat Jarah's mother, Atiya Shekho Sofi, was an illiterate woman who raised seven children, including two girls and five boys. Safuat Jarah married Ronak Abdul Qadir in 1969. Although she was not an artist, she always encouraged and believed in Safwat Jarah's abilities.
In 1953-1954, he participated in the play Othello directed by Jawad Rasul Naji in Erbil, where he played the role of Dezdemuna, a female character. He was given the honor of portraying a female character because of the lack of female actors at the time. From 1970 to 1999, he worked as a director of the Cinema and Theater Institute, the Palace of Culture and Arts in Baghdad and the Director of the Directorate of Cinema, Theater and National Arts in Erbil.[1]