Blackboards

This fluid, episodic narrative, following Kurdish refugees traversing the rocky mountain passes near the Iraqi border in northern Iran, focuses on teachers trying to find students as well as a group of old men in search of homes, as armed soldiers patrol their surrounds. Makhmalbaf’s precociously assured and bold second feature combines documentary realism with surrealist fantasy, as itinerant teachers carrying their blackboards on their backs crowd uncannily together to “make a spectacle that is like an art installation” (Peter Bradshaw). Co-written with and edited by Samira’s father, Mohsen.

35mm print courtesy of the National Film and Sound Archive, Australia.