News No 95
Tuesday
15th April 2008

Archive

Hana Makhmalbaf's Buddha wins the Best Film ENI award

"ENI Windows on the World Prize" for the Best Feature Film went to Hana Makhmalbaf the 19 year old Iranian filmmaker whose film "Buddha Collapsed Out Of Shame" competed in the Windows on the World Feature Film Competition at the 18th African Asian and Latin American Film Festival of Milan 2008.

The jury, (Danny Glover-Teresa Cavina- Tahar Ben Jelloun), while declaring Buddha Collapsed out of Shame by Hana Makhmalbaf as the winner of the Best Feature Film award announced: “Our praise goes to the film for both the director great artistic vision and the importance of the political problem she sensitively deals with in her film. A film about the origins of fanaticism as it has developed in Afghanistan. And the fact that the story is about children playing like the Taliban shows us how they are manufactured adults ready to kill and die for ideas obscurantist. It is a moving film which sends out its message very effectively.”

This is the 10th international award for the film “Buddha Collapsed Out Of Shame” by Hana Makhmalbaf. Previously the film has received the following international awards as well: “Crystal Bear", Berlin Film Festival, " Special Peace Award", Berlin Film Festival, "The Special Jury Prize" from San Sebastian International Film Festival, The TVE Award "La Otra Mirada" by Spanish TV, "Unicef special award" in Rome Film Festival, "Daniel Langlois Innovation Prize" from Festival du nouveau cinéma in Montreal, "Discovery Prize" from Sarlat Film Festival in France, “The Special honor award” Association Club de las 25 in Spain and "Woman & Equality Award" from Thessaloniki International Film Festival in Greece.

The film "Buddha collapsed out of shame" has been screened in cinemas across Europe so far. The spanish distributors still with more than 17 prints in cinemas of its country, gives the news of running into the 8th week of screening this weekend.

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Frequently asked Questions and Answers

These questions are repeatedly asked in the website of Makhmalbaf Film House. In order to save time both for the questioner and the answerer these questions and answers have been posted in the bottom of the monthly news page and inquiries can be referred to this section and later new questions and answers will be added to this section.

Question1: We are interested to show one of your films for your fans in our country. How can we obtain these films?

Answer: Usually these films have an international distributor. Refer to your favorite film title in the movie section of this site. You’ll find the distributor’s name to contact. International distributors usually provide the films to festivals and registered companies in various countries.
For those films that do not have international distributors on the page you may refer to their Iranian producers.

Q2: we are interested to obtain VHS or DVD copies of your films. Where do we refer to?

A: In Iran the Visual Media Institution (Moassese-ye-Rasaneh Haye Tasviri) and Hoze-e Honari have distributed VHS and DVD copies of 10 films by Makhmalbaf Film House. Outside Iran the DVD copies of Hello Cinema, Gabbeh, Bread and the Vase, Silence, Kandahar, Blackboard, Five in the Afternoon, September the 11th and the Day I became a Woman have been distributed in France.
Some of these films have been distributed in the United States and England in the form of DVD with English subtitles and in Japan with Japanese subtitles.

Q3: I am interested to obtain some of your books. Where do I refer to?

A: In the books section of the site the titles of the books are under the names of the authors. In the books section you’ll find the name of the publisher but some of these books are rare, therefore for every book either some excerpts or the whole book have been posted under the heading ‘a Part of the Book’. The book ‘The Buddha Was Not Demolished; It collapsed out of Shame’ is available in whole on the site in Farsi, English, French, German and Bosnian. We will gradually post the complete Farsi texts of all the books by Makhmalbaf Film House.

Q4: I am interested to have stills of your films. Where can I obtain these?

A: Refer to gallery under every film title in the site. You can print or copy high resolution pictures in small or large sizes.

Q5: I am interested in studying in Makhmalbaf Film School. Where can I register?

A: Makhmalbaf Film School was active only for a few years.

Q6: I want to become a filmmaker and before that I need to study cinema. What is your recommendation?

A: Between studying in a film school and making a film by digital camera we prefer the latter because it is a shorter and more practical way and if you possess an inherent talent it will be revealed sooner. Film schools in general, increase your knowledge about cinema and pay less attention to developing your talent. they however, provide grounds for serious film students to become familiar with the field. If there are any film schools available in your area you will be become familiar with preliminary steps of making a film. Through digital camera cinema is gradually turning into a simple pen. Every day the significance of technique lessens and on the contrary the importance of your artistic creativity increases. The camera you use today is less important than your art. Marquez can write his novels with a regular lead pen that all first graders carry in their back packs. You alike can make a film with your regular home camera. What you need to seek and find and strengthen in yourself is a new and in depth look that can speak of human pains and dreams. That way your sufferings and dreams will be shared by all and you will become one nation or humanity for that matter. Your digital camera helps you find out that if you lack the talent you can build your future on something else.
The courses at Makhmalbaf Film School started with these two verses:

Seek little water, become thirsty
Until water boils from above and below

To do good is to do full.

Q7: I want to become an actor/actress.

A: Iranian directors include two groups.
The first group is those who work with non-actors. These directors usually seek persons who may not even be interested in acting but their character is appropriate for playing a specific role for once and many times the subject and the actor occur to the filmmaker’s mind simultaneously. Naturally, those interested in acting may not be appropriate for this type of cinema and it would be a waste of time for them to seek such projects.
The second group is those working with professional actors. These filmmakers are also in two groups.
A) Those who seek actors who have been successful in other films (referring to them is also a waste of time for both the actor and the director)
B) Those who seek to discover new talents in acting. These new talents are sometimes found in auditions and other times from among theatre actors.
So we recommend that either enter a theatre group and experience the preliminary principles of theatre acting or participate in auditions that directors sometimes hold to cast their actors for their next film.
Makhmalbaf Film House usually holds such auditions in the countries they make their films. On the news page of the website you will encounter the subject at least once a year.
Do not forget that the number of people interested in acting in Iran is so high that the total number of films produced in the world does not suffice for this many people. At least 3000 films are made annually in the world and about 60 to 80 films are made in Iran. This is while the number of people interested in acting reaches tens of thousands. We are always concerned about the failure of these people in an environment that lacks balance between supply and demand. Naturally, the majority remain deprived.

Q8: I am interested in working for Makhmalbaf Film House.

A: Makhmalbaf Film House is a name that a family has given to their professional activities. Whenever a film is made a number of cinema professionals join this family for a period of one to two months and at the film locations usually some locals work for the project in their specialized fields. After the shooting ends the Makhmalbaf Film House is nothing but the family again.

Q9: I am interested in becoming a screenwriter. What is your recommendation?

A: Take a pen right now and write a script about what you are familiar with and interested in. If you tell yourself ‘ok I will write later’, know that you are not serious enough. If you call your friends as soon as you get a chance or go to gatherings all the time you are a sociable person. If you read a book at any chance that prevails you are into reading. If you go to cinema or watch films you are a spectator but if on every occasion you take a pen and write about what goes on in your mind or around you, you are a writer and if what you write is a script you are a screen writer. How deep is what you write depends on your own depth. How humanistic it is depends on how your apprehensions are not personal but involve humanity. In addition, books on how to write scripts and other people’s scripts teach you a lot.
The books on 100 years of cinema that include 100 classic works in screenwriting by Nay Publications have been published for that purpose.
On our website some of the scripts by Makhmalbaf Film House have been posted in Farsi or English.

Q10: I have written a script and would like one of the Makhmalbaf Film House members to make it.

A: Makhmalbaf Film House members usually make films from their own life experiences and what goes on around them or serious issues that take place in the world. At first, they become interested in or impressed by a subject or event. Then they study the subject. If the event or subject happens to be in another country other than their own residence, they travel to that country and based on their observations they write their scripts.

Q11: I have written a script. I would like for you to read it and guide me on it.

A: If you are a beginner, our guidance will not be any different than what educational books recommend to beginners. If you are a professional please excuse us for refusing to read scripts of our professional friends as to avoid any future misunderstandings.

Q12: I am interested in conducting an interview with you. The interview will be about one of your films or new works.

A: On our website there are enough materials about the films and the directors that you can find. Usually the director of every film that is accepted in an international film festival for the first time attends that festival and for several days conducts press conferences and interviews about the film. Usually a couple of these interviews are posted on the site. The news section of Makhmalbaf Film House posts their latest news on the beginning of every month both in English and Farsi.

13- Question: Mohsen Makhmalbaf went to Tajikistan in September of 2004 and made the film ‘Sex and Philosophy’ there. Then he went to India for the making of ‘Cry of the Ants’. Previously also, he had resided in Afghanistan for the making of several films. Is this trend going to continue in the future? Why don’t you make films in Iran any more? Have you left Iran?

Answer: We usually live in or around our film locations. From the time we start writing a film script we live in the area where the film events take place. This is for better understanding the conditions of our film’s subject or in other words to internalize it.

On every film from the time of writing to pre-production and end of shooting we spend almost 6 months of our life in the country the film is being made. This is sort of a voluntary artistic vagrancy in order to avoid the censorship pressures in Iran and also out of keen interest in making films about human issues that happen in places other than Iran.

Life is too short and we can not afford for example to wait a decade and waste our time in order for better filmmaking conditions to prevail in our own country.

14- Q: If you were to reside in a country more permanently where would you prefer to live?

A: Iran in the first place but not at any cost. I am a filmmaker. If living in Iran equals not making films, between Iran and filmmaking I will choose the latter. Of course, as Napoleon said: “Never say never”. I am not implying that I will never make films in Iran but I am saying wherever more suitable circumstances are provided for artistic venture I will prefer to do that both for the sake of working and living. It takes much patience for this repetitious and wearisome life in which every day is none but witnessing the human societies fall into historical retrogression.

15- Q: In Dushanbe Film Festival in Tajikistan you brought forth the concept of filmmakers without frontiers. Do you consider yourself a filmmaker without frontiers?

A: Filmmakers without frontiers is not an odd name. It is similar to Doctors without Frontiers. When you can treat the wounded in a war regardless of the nationality of both the physician and the sick, why not reveal common human sufferings by being a filmmaker.

Cinema broke geographical boundaries as it appeared. The Lumiere brothers were French but they created a cinema that did not remain French but became international.

Nowadays, people’s knowledge and perception of another country stems from pictures and films rather than having traveled to those countries. It suffices to have a list of world countries and ask yourself how much you know about each other than their names. The nations about which we know more than their mere names, are mainly those that we have probably seen in pictures or films. Nations understand each other’s national spirit through images of documentary cinema.

The concept of filmmakers without frontiers is brought forth because although there are over 200 countries and thousands of languages and cultures on earth but the dominant cinema that occupies 90 percent of movie theatres in the world belongs to Hollywood.

Under Hollywood’s economic and commercial dominion not only the artistic and documentary but also the national cinema of many countries has faded and many nations remain without pictures.

There are other filmmakers that have fled their countries because of censorship. These filmmakers can not spend a couple of decades of their life in waiting for the censorship authorities in their homeland to come to the awareness that censorship does not offer solutions but it only erases the problem.

These filmmakers can create their work under more adequate conditions and their films will gradually reach their fellow citizens but if they remain in their countries they will not be able to create any work. The other point is the issue of perspective. In the past, many Orientalists who were mostly from western countries came to the East and made documentary or feature films or wrote books. Why not reverse the direction from the east to the west or the east to the east.

This concept can also help break the taboo brought forth by dogmatic critics that every filmmaker is only capable of making films in his own country. If this thesis proved right and Tarkovsky also accepted it, then how would masterpieces such as Nostalgia have been created by a Russian filmmaker in Italy? Or wouldn’t cinema have been deprived of having Kieslowski’s films that were mostly made in exile?

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