Monday, November 30, 2009 - by: Musefresco
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The movies and the Makhmalbafs
Thursday, November 19, 2009 - by: Musefresco
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Good filmmakers are hard to come by, but if your whole family is in the business of making films, there is a possibility that you just might turn out to be one. That seems to be happening in the case of the Makhmalbafs, the first family of Iranian cinema. This illustrious family of filmmakers has been in the forefront, making the world take notice of Iranian cinema.
The paterfamilias of this family is the incomparable Mohsen Makhmalbaf who, at the young age of fifteen, formed an underground Islamic militia group. At seventeen, he was arrested for trying to disarm a policeman. The young Mohsen was released after four and a half years in prison, following the overthrow of the Shah in I979. Using his time in prison to educate himself, he read widely on a whole range of subjects, thus beginning to introspect on life and Iranian society. He soon distanced himself from political activities and went on to work towards enriching Iranian culture as he felt that more than anything else, it was the lack of a proper culture that was afflicting Iranian society the most. Starting out as a scriptwriter for other filmmakers, he eventually made his first feature Tobeh Nosuh in 1983. Kandahar, a film he made in 2001, is one of his most popular films which fetched him the Federico Fellini Prize from UNESCO. The film deals with life in Afghanistan under the Taliban. Initially ignored when it was first shown at Cannes in May 2001, the film was appreciated a lot after the events of September 11, 2001. It was selected by Time magazine as one of the 100 best movies of all time.
Mohsen is the incumbent president of the Asian Film Academy and was named the official spokesman for Mir-Hossein Mousavi’s election campaign abroad in connection with the recent Iranian presidential elections. He has been very critical of how the election was conducted. It’s no wonder that most of his films are either ignored or banned in Iran. He is the founder of Afghan Children’s Education Movement, an association which promotes literacy, culture and the arts among the Afghans. It runs a film school which trains actors and directors for the emerging Afghan cinema.
The matriarch of the Makhmalbaf household is Marziyeh Meshkini, who is an award winning filmmaker in her own right. Her first film, The Day I Become a Woman fetched her three awards at the Venice International Film Festival. Stray Dogs, her second film, received two awards in Venice in 2003 again. She had also written the script for her daughter Hana’s award winning film, “Buddha Collapsed out of Shame”.
A famous scene from KandaharThe beauteous Samira Makhmalbaf is the oldest among the three Makhmalbaf siblings. She made her directorial debut at seventeen with “The Apple” and became the youngest director participating in the official section of the Cannes Film Festival. None other than Jean Luc Godard had heaped praises on her on different occasions for her first film. She received a Special Jury award for her second film, “The Blackboard” in 2000. A year later, she again won the Special Jury award for her third film, “At Five in the Afternoon”. In 2003, she was named as one of the best 40 directors in the world along with fellow Iranian filmmaker Abas Kiorastami. Apart from being a talented filmmaker, this articulate Persian princess of cinema is a thinking man’s sex symbol of sorts with her flawless alabaster skin and radiant beauty. On many occasions, she had upstaged even celebrated Hollywood sex goddesses like Sharon Stone with her serene aura and mediagenic presence.
Hana Makhmalbaf is the youngest of the Makhmalbaf siblings. She made a documentary film called Joy of Madness when she was 14 which was premiered at the Venice Film Festival. It received three international film awards. Her first feature film, Buddha Collapsed out of Shame received the prestigious Crystal Bear at the Berlin Film Festival along with the Special Peace Prize last year.
Maysam Makhmalbaf is the only son of the Makhmalbaf couple, and brother to Samira and Hana. Maysam, apart from directing a documentary called How Samira made the Blackboard, has produced Hana’s first film. He has not done much in filmmaking yet but one can rest assured that he will excel at it like the rest of his family in the days to come. Iran’s cinema is in safe hands for now.
You can visit their website at http://www.makhmalbaf.com
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Ha Jin and his literature
- by: Musefresco
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