Country: Iran
Year: 1996
Duration: 75'
In the southeast Iran the nomadic tribes whose speciality is to weave gabbehare on the brink of becoming extinct. A gabbehis a highly original kind of carpet: the patterns are very creative, always different, inspired by the tribe's life, the landscapes the tribe goes through, the love stories it experiences. Alongside a river an old woman in the process of washing a gabbehseems to be having a conversation with the magnificent carpet: from its patterns the image of a young girl named gabbeh appears to tell her love story. Although her family forbids her to join the man she is in love with, Gabbeh, throughout a walking journey with the tribe, watches her horseriding lover who, in the distance, keeps following them through the mountains and the rivers. Parallel to Gabbeh's story, there is that of her old uncle Sayahi, a former schoolmaster and poet, who has returned from the city where he spent a long time, in order to settle in the countryside with his native tribe. This is where he teaches the children how to obtain from flowers the wonderful colours that will help dye the gabbeh's wool. One day, near a spring, he meets with love...
"When you bring a gabbeh home you feel like you've brought nature with it. Nature's at your feet! Today I'm under the impression that a gabbehbears some resemblance to any good Iranian film!". (Mohsen Makhmalbaf)
Biography
film director
Mohsen Makhmalbaf
Born in 1957 in a poor quarter of Tehran, Mohsen Makhmalbaf had to do more than a dozen of odd jobs lo earn his own and help support his mother between the age of eight and seventeen. When he was 15, he engaged in clandestine activity through a guerrilla group he himself had organized. Al 17, he was shot and arrested when trying to disarm a policeman and spent four and a half years in prison.
Released during the 1979 revolution, he quit all political activity and went in for literature and cinema. His published work includes about twenty volumes of novels and dramaturgy, film scripts and essays on art, some of which haze been translated into Turkish, Arabic, Urdu, Kurdish and English. With several scripts in addition lo the ones he had personally filmed, two documentaries and 20 movies edited by him, Makhmalbaf is the most prolific Iranian director of the last two decades.
His fourteen films made in as many years have invariably been, for one reason or another, controversial at home and abroad. The Peddler, The Cyclist, Marriage of the Blessed, Time for Love, Once Upon a Time, Cinema, The Actor and Salaam Cinema have so far been presented at 170 international film festivals and screened in 40 countries, with 22 prizes won among them. The awards include the top prize at the Rimini International Film Festival (Italy, 1989) and the East-West Award al the Hawaii International Film Festival (Usa, 1991) for The Cyclist; the First Prize of the Taormina International Film Festival (Italy, 1992), the jury's Special Award and the Fipresci film critics' award at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (Czechoslovakia, 1992), and the jury's Special Award at the Istanbul International Film Festival (Turkey, 1992) for Once Upon a Time, Cinema; and the Critics' Award (Sao Paulo, Brasil, 1995) for all his works.
FILMOGRAFIA
Film di finzione/Fiction Films
Tobe-ye Nasuh (Nasooh's Repentance/Pentimento definitivo, 1982).
Do cheshm-e bi su (Two Sightless Eyes/Due occhi senza luce, 1983).
Estèaze (Seeking Refuge in God/Rifugiarsi in Dio, 1984).
Baycot (Boycott/Il boicottaggio, 1985).
Dastforush (The Peddler/L'ambulante, 1986).
Baysilkeran (The Cyclist/Il ciclista, 1987).
'Arusi-ye khuban (The Marriage of the Blessed/Il matrimonio dei benedetti, 1988).
Nobat-e asheqi (Time of Love/Tempo d'amare, 1990).
Shabhay-e Zayandeh Rud (Nights on the Zayandeh Rud/Notti sullo Zayandeh Rud, 1990).
Ruzi ruzegari cineina/Nasseroddin Shah, hactore cinema (Once Upon a Time, Cinema/C'era una volta il cinema, 1991).
Honar Pishé (The Actor/ L'attore, 1992).
Salaam Cinema (Salam Cinema, 1994).
Gabbeh (idem, 1995).
Nun va goldun (A Moment of Innocence/Un istante di innocenza,1996).
Documentari/Documentare
Gozideh tasvir dar doran-c Qajar (A Selection of Images from Qajar Era/Una selezione di immagini del periodo Qajar, 1992).
Sang-o shisheh (The Stone and the Glass/La pietra e il vetro, 1993).
Cast
& Credits
Director, screenplay and editor: Mohsen Makhmalbaf.
Director of photography: Mahrnud Kalari.
Music: Hossein Alizadeh.
Cast and characters: Shaqayeq Jodat (Gabbeh), Hossein Moharrami (il vecchio), Roqieh Moharrami (Roqieh), Abbas Sayahi (lo zio).
Production company: Sanayee Dasti, 90 Avenue Seyboyeh, Shiraz, Tehran, Iran, tel. e fax +98-21-5658672.
Foreign sales agent: MK2 diffusion, 55 rue Traversière, 75012 Paris, tel. +33-143071510, fax +33-1-43442018.
Director of photography: Mahrnud Kalari.
Music: Hossein Alizadeh.
Cast and characters: Shaqayeq Jodat (Gabbeh), Hossein Moharrami (il vecchio), Roqieh Moharrami (Roqieh), Abbas Sayahi (lo zio).
Production company: Sanayee Dasti, 90 Avenue Seyboyeh, Shiraz, Tehran, Iran, tel. e fax +98-21-5658672.
Foreign sales agent: MK2 diffusion, 55 rue Traversière, 75012 Paris, tel. +33-143071510, fax +33-1-43442018.
