38° TORINO FILM FESTIVAL
MASTERCLASS

ALEFBAY-E AFGHAN

THE AFGHAN ALPHABET
by Mohsen Makhmalbaf
Country: Iran
Year: 2002
Duration: 45'


In the border villages between Iran and Afghanistan, director Mohsen Makhmalbaf films the children who do not attend school and questions why they are not being educated. He encounters a group of girls studying in UNICEF classes: one of them refuses to cast off her burqa despite the fact that she has escaped Afghanistan and the threat of the Taliban. She is more afraid of the horrifying god they have created than of the Taliban themselves. An extraordinary, political and militant documentary, capable of pushing Iranian government to open an educational program for Afghan refugee children in Iran.

Biography

film director

Mohsen Makhmalbaf

(Teheran, Iran, 1957) formed an Islamic militia group since he was 15 and by the time he was 17, he was arrested and he was released from prison shortly after the revolution in 1979. In jail he distances himself from politics and find better satisfaction in literature and in cinema. Makhmalbaf became a writer and filmmaker in the early 1980s. He published several books and he wrote, directed, edited and mainly produced more the 20 feature films and several short films, both fiction and documentary, as well as writing screenplays and editing films for various other Iranian filmmakers. His films attended international film festivals and earned lots of awards from them. His most famous works include A Moment of Innocence (1995) and The Silence (1997), and in 2000s Journey to Kandahar (2001), and The President (2014), which opened Orizzonti section in Venice Film Festival. In 2019 he dis shoot in Italiy Marghe and Her Mother, as part of the celebrations for the event “Matera's European Capital of Culture.”

FILMOGRAFIA

Tobeh Nosuh (1982), Este’aze (Fleeing from Evil to God, 1984), Baykot (Boycott, 1985), Dastfourush (L’ambulante, 1986), Baysikelran (Il ciclista, 1987), Shabhaye Zayendeh-Rood (1990), Nobat e Asheghi (Tempo d’amare, 1990), Nassereddin Shah, Actor-e Cinema (Once upon a Time, Cinema 1991), Honarpisheh (Actor, 1992), Images from the Ghajar Dynasty (doc, cm, 1993), Salaam Cinema (id., doc, 1994), Gabbeh (1995), Nun va Goldoon (Pane e fiore, 1995), Sokout (Il silenzio, 1997), Madresei keh baad bord (cm, 1998), Ghessé hayé kish (ep. The Door, 1999), Tales of an Island (ep. Testing Democracy, 2000), Alefbay-e afghan (Afghan Alphabet, doc, mm, 2002), Safar e Ghandehar (Viaggio a Kandahar, 2001), The Chair (cm, 2005), Sex o phalsapheh (Sesso e filosofia, 2005), Faryad moorcheha (Viaggio in India, 2006), The Man Who Came with the Snow (coregia Marzieh Makhmalbaf, 2009), The Gardener (doc, 2012), Ongoing Smile (doc, mm, 2013), The President (2014), Tenant (cm, 2015), Marghe and Her Mother (2019).

Cast

& Credits

DIRECTOR, SCREENPLAY, CINEMATOGRAPHY, FILM EDITING: Mohsen Makhmalbaf. SOUND: Mojtaba Mirtahmaseb. PRODUCTION: Makhmalbaf Productions

CONTACTS: Makhmalbaf Film House may@makhmalbaf.com
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