Literature, Music & Cinema - Iran - page 626

Makhmalbaf has become a virtual exile from Iran because of the country's censorship. In 1997 Makhmalbaf's
daughter Samira produced her first film, The Apple, to critical acclaim. In 2000 her second film, Blackboards, was a
smash hit at the Cannes Film Festival; she was the youngest director ever to have shown a film there.

The Makhmalbaf movie factory continues to churn out winners. Samira's younger brother made a 'making-of'
documentary about Blackboards; then younger sister Hana directed a feature about the shooting of Samira's film At
Five in the Afternoon . On the strength of that film, Joy of Madness, Hana beat Samira to a 'youngest-ever' record by
being invited to the Venice Film Festival at the age of 14. Even Mohsen Makhmalbaf's second wife (the sister of his
first wife, who died tragically), Marzieh Meshkini, has directed an acclaimed film, The Day I Became a Woman,
which examines what it is to be a woman in Iran.
Mohsen Makhmalbaf survived two assassination attempts while filming Kandahar in Iran, and in 2007 the whole
family was attacked while on location in Afghanistan for Samira's film The Two-legged Horse . A man posing as an
extra threw a bomb onto the set, wounding six actors and several extras and killing the horse in the film's title.

Having moved to Paris in 2005, in 2009 Mohsen Makhmalbaf became a spokesman abroad for Green Movement
leader and presidential candidate Mirhossein Mousavi. His outspoken criticism of the Ahmadinejad government has
left him, in effect, an exile. For more on the Makhmalbafs, see www.makhmalbaf.com .

Iranians love their own cinema and flock to it in droves. But many internationally ac-
claimed 'art-house' films never get released at home, and are distributed on the bootleg
market instead. Some Iranians feel the masters are making movies specifically for foreign
markets and film festivals. Dozens of films are churned out every year for the domestic
market, many of them action flicks, though the appetite for films looking at social issues
is increasing.

Of these the most notable is A Separation ,
the 2012 winner of the Academy Award for
best foreign language film and nominee for
best original screenplay, in which director
Asghar Farhadi looks at a Tehran couple's dis-
solving marriage and how the hiring of a carer
for an ill parent complicates matters further.
Other films worth seeking out include Majid
Majidi's film Children of Heaven, which was nominated for the best foreign language
film Oscar in 1998. It is a delicate tale focusing on two poor children losing a pair of
shoes. The White Balloon, written by Abbas Kiarostami and directed by Jafar Panahi, tells
the story of a young girl who loses her money while on the way to buy a goldfish. The
film won several international awards.

Taste of Cherry, directed by Abbas Kiarostami, was
cowinner of the prestigious Palme d'Or at the 1997
Cannes Film Festival, despite being very controver-
sial inside Iran because it deals with suicide, a ta-
boo subject in Islam.