Blackboards

Takhte siah

Iran

2000

85 Min

Color

1.78:1

Kurdish

Currently 3.4/5 Stars.
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PROD Mohsen Makhmalbaf, Marco Müller, Shozo Ichiyama

SCR Mohsen Makhmalbaf, Samira Makhmalbaf

CAST Said Mohamadi, Behnaz Jafari, Bahman Ghobadi, Rafat Moradi

SOUND Behroz Shahamat

Cannes (In Competition): Jury Prize, Toronto (Contemporary World Cinema), AFI FEST (International Competition): Grand Jury Prize, Rotterdam, London (Film on the Square)

Synopsis

In Northern Iran, close to the Iraki border, a small group of persons walks painfully, carrying big blackboards on their backs. They are schoolmasters looking for pupils… Quite an utopian initiative in a war-torn region where people’s major concern is mere survival. At a crossroad, the schoolmasters have to separate in order to take shelter from a heavy bombing. Among them is Reeboir who soon meets a group of child smugglers. He tries to teach them who to read and write. In another village, his colleague Saïd meets a group of elder people who try to return to their home village. He also meets a young widow. He tries to teach her and to maker her understand his feelings… Samira Makhmalbaf’s second film (after her award-winning Sib, The Apple) shows the excdeptional talent of a very young director, trained by her father Mohsen Makhmalbaf.

Director

Samira Makhmalbaf

Samira Makhmalbaf (Persian: سمیرا مخملباف, UniPers: Samirâ Maxmalbâf) (born February 15, 1980, Tehran) is an internationally acclaimed Iranian filmmaker and script writer. She is the daughter of Mohsen Makhmalbaf, the film director and writer. Samira Makhmalbaf belongs to the New wave movement within Iranian cinema. At the age of 20 Samira studied Psychology and Law at Roehampton University in London.

At the age of seven, she acted in her father’s film The Bicyclist. She left high school when she was 14, to learn cinema in the Mohhmalbaf Film House for 5 years. At the age of 17, after directing two video productions, she went on to direct the movie The Apple. One year later, the 18 year old director went on to become the youngest director in the world participating in the official section of the 1998 Cannes Film Festival. The Apple has been invited to more than 100 international film festivals in a period of two years, while going to the screen in more… read more

Samira Makhmalbaf (Persian: سمیرا مخملباف, UniPers: Samirâ Maxmalbâf) (born February 15, 1980, Tehran) is an internationally acclaimed Iranian filmmaker and script writer. She is the daughter of Mohsen Makhmalbaf, the film director and writer. Samira Makhmalbaf belongs to the New wave movement within Iranian cinema. At the age of 20 Samira studied Psychology and Law at Roehampton University in London.

At the age of seven, she acted in her father’s film The Bicyclist. She left high school when she was 14, to learn cinema in the Mohhmalbaf Film House for 5 years. At the age of 17, after directing two video productions, she went on to direct the movie The Apple. One year later, the 18 year old director went on to become the youngest director in the world participating in the official section of the 1998 Cannes Film Festival. The Apple has been invited to more than 100 international film festivals in a period of two years, while going to the screen in more than 30 countries.

In 1999, Samira made her second feature film, entitled The Blackboard and for the second time participated in the competition section of the Cannes Film Festival as the youngest director in the world, in 2000, this time winning the jury prize.

Samira next directed a movie while living in Kabul called At Five in the Afternoon. Her latest film, Two-Legged Horse, from a script by her father Mohsen, was also shot in Afghanistan.

Samira Mohmalbaf has been the winner and nominee of numerous awards. She was nominated twice for Golden Palm of Cannes Film Festival for Panj é asr (At Five in the Afternoon) (2003) and Takhté siah (The Blackboard) (2001). She won Prix du Jury of Cannes, for both films in 2003 and 2001 respectively. Samira Mohmalbaf also won UNESCO Award of Venice Film Festival in 2002 for 11.09.01 – September 11 and Sutherland Trophy of London Film Festival for The Apple in 1998. In 2003, a panel of critics at the British newspaper The Guardian named Makhmalbaf among the best 40 best directors at work today. —Wikipedia

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