Synopsis

Mohsen Makhmalbaf tracks the children who do not attend school in the border villages between Iran and Afghanistan with his digital camera and questions why they are not being educated.

He finds girls studying in UNICEF classes in one region.
One of the girls is not willing to come out of her burqa despite the fact that she has run away from Afghanistan and the Taliban are not present here.



She is more afraid of the horrifying god that the Taliban have created more than the Taliban. The teacher tries.

Cast: Maryam Ozbak, Ghafour Barahouyi, and refugees Afghans in Iran

 
Director's View

The Taliban was not a political regime in Afghanistan but they are still a culture. Bombarding can ruin a political regime but it cannot change a culture.

You cannot free a woman whom is imprisoned in the burqa with a rocket. The Afghan girl needs education. She doesn’t know that she doesn’t know.

She is imprisoned but she does not know that she is a prisoner of poverty, ignorance, prejudice, male chauvinism and superstition.

95% of the women and 80% of the men in Afghanistan did not have the chance to attend school even before the Taliban.

The film seeks the lost key to be able to open the lock of the cultural problems of Afghanistan. 

Title:

Script, cameraman and director: Mohsen Makhmalbaf
Director’s assistants: Samira Makhmalbaf, Hana Makhmalbaf
Still photography: Marzieh Meshkini
Sound: Mojtaba Mirtahmasb
Music:Mohammad-Reza Darvishi
Sound and technical matters: Sibal Honar Studio
Producer: Makhmalbaf Film House
Global distributor: Wild Bunch Co.
Duration: 46 minutes, (digital) Transfer to 35mm
Production year: 2001
Filming Locations: Zahedan, Sistan & Baluchestan Province, Iran

All income generated from this movie belongs to the Afghan Children Education Movement.

International Sales: Wild Bunch (France)

  

Festivals:

1) Gotteburg Film Festival, Sweden 2002.
2) Fajr Film Festival, Iran 2002.
3) ChicagoFilm Festival, USA 2002.
4) Sao Paulo Film Festival,Brazil 2002.
5) Nat Film Festival, Denmark 2002.
6) City Page Film Festival, USA 2002.
7) Seattle Film Festival, USA 2002.
8) Pusan Film Festival, South Korea 2002.
9) Document ART Film Festival, Germany 2002.
10) Shadow Film Festival, Netherland 2002.
11) Double Take Documentary Film Festival, USA 2002
12) Thessaloniki 4th festival, 2002.
13) Hong kong Film Festival, china 2003.
14) Rio de janeiro Film Festival, Brazil 2003.
15) Istanbul Independent Film Festival, Turkey 2003.
16) Munich Film Festival, Germany 2003.
17) Berlin Film Festival, Germany 2004.
18) Boston, Museum of fine Atrs, USA 2004.

International Award's:

1. Thessaloniki 4th festival , Honorary Humanitarian Award (Greece) 2002
2. "Best Film Award"from Document ART International Film Festival, (Germany) 2002.