Films with: Makhmalbāf, Muḥsin

Baysīkilrān The cyclist /

Nazim, formerly a cyclist, but now a lowly Afghan guest worker in Iran, must overcome many obstacles in his attempt to ride a bicycle continuously for seven days and nights, in order to obtain money to pay for medical care for his desperately ill wife.

DVD 4596

Bāykūt Boycott /

Set in the period just prior to the Islamic Revolution the story is inspired by the filmmakers's own painful experiences. Valeh, a member of a leftist organization, is arrested and is sentenced to death. In prison, he reconsiders his beliefs and comes to doubt the validity of the ideas for which he is condemned. At the same time, his prison comrades are pressuring him to make a sacrifice for their cause.

DVD 11090

Gabbeh

"A folkloric carpet (Gabbeh), picturing a man and a woman riding away on horseback, is the prized possession of an elderly nomadic couple. When they ... wash it ..., a beautiful young woman ... emerges from the carpet to ... reveal the secret of the carpet. Once held hostage by the endless restraints of the family that fashioned the carpet, she reveals that the secret...lies within the mysterious black-clad rider on the white horse. Month after month, season after season, he had followed her family from afar, always present, always waiting, howling to her songs of love--longing for her to run away with him."--Container.

DVD 4198

Iran une revolution cinematographique /

Traces the development of the Iranian film industry, which has always been closely intertwined with the country's tumultuous political history, chronicling how Iranian films reflected contemporaneous society and often presaged social change. It shows how mainstream commercial cinema served as a propaganda tool for both the monarchy and the fundamentalist religious regime, recounts the sporadic efforts of some filmmakers to reveal grimmer social realties, and the struggles against censorship and traditional cinematic formulas by such pioneers as Bahram Beyzai and Sohrab Shahid Saless and pre- and post-Islamic revolutionary 'new wave' filmmakers.

DVD 4855

Kandahar journey into the heart of Afghanistan /

Nafas, an Afghan-born Canadian journalist, returns to her homeland in a desperate attempt to reach her sister, who, overcome with grief after being injured by a landmine and her despair over the Taliban's oppression of women, has vowed that she will commit suicide at the time of the next solar eclipse, only three days away.

DVD 1479

Khanah siyah ast The house is black /

This film about the leprosy colony in Tabriz, Iran is a compassionate portrait of forgotten people. Straightforward yet sympathetic, the film affords dignity to its subjects, particularly through Farrokhzad's striking poem read by the poet herself. The House Is Black has heavily influenced the modern Iranian cinema of such great filmmakers as Abbas Kiarostami and Mohsen Makhmalbaf, who called it "the best Iranian film." It provides, in the film's own words, "a vision of pain no caring human being should ignore."

DVD 3543

Nāsir al-din Shah aktur-i cīnemā Once upon a time cinema /

A cinematographer introduces movies to the Persian court. The Shah intially opposes the new medium but he falls in love with the film's heroine.

DVD 11089

Nūn va-guldūn Moment of innocence /

Reconstructs an incident in the director's life. A former policeman wants to play in Makhmalbaf's next film. It turns out that they had already met, twenty years before, when Makhmalbaf was arrested for stabbing the same policeman while trying to take his gun. Makhmalbaf decides that they should recreate this incident on film, each from their own point of view.

DVD 6691

Panj-i ʻaṣr = At five in the afternoon /

"The latest film by internationally acclaimed young Iranian director Samira Makhmalbaf is the first to be made in the ruined city of Kabul. It tells the story of Noqreh, a young woman eager to take advantage of the new freedoms and opportunities afforded to women."--Container.

DVD 3115

Roozi keh zan shodam The day I became a woman /

Three portraits of women at three stages of life in Iran, including a nine-year-old girl told she can no longer play with boys because she is now a "woman", a young woman who enters a bicycle race against her husband's wishes, and an old woman who gains money and the freedom to do what she wishes with it. Special features include text of the director's statement, interview, and filmography.

DVD 4577

Stardust stricken, Mohsen Makhmalbaf : a portrait

A documentary on the life of the controversial Iranian filmmaker Mohsen Makhmalbaf. In this portrait, the filmmaker speaks about his life, childhood, political and cultural activities, his filmmaking style, and his beliefs about art, cinema, violence, religion and death.

DVD 11778

Sukūt Silence /

"This resonant fable centers on Khorshid, a blind boy who works as a tuner of musical instruments. On the verge of losing his job and his home, the otherworldly, hyper-alert boy is constantly led astray from mundane matters by the siren call of a pretty voice or a skilled musician. Khorshid is a holy fool in search of a pitch-perfect vibration that will bring cohesion and harmony to a world out of tune. Shot in Tajikistan, this deceptively simple tale is a deeply personal statement on Makhmalbaf's continuing fight for artistic freedom."--New Yorker Films

DVD 11091