Mini biography

Samira Makhmalbaf (February 15, 1980, Teheran, Iran) 

Samira Makhmalbaf is the daughter of Iranian director Mohsen Makhmalbaf. She got her first taste of the cinema when she was eight, playing a cameo role as a little gypsy girl in her father’s The Cyclist (1988).

After leaving school at 15 because she found the teachers incompetent, she began learning to make movies, mostly by watching and assisting her father but also in a film course at a private school.

She directed two short videos, a drama entitled Desert and a documentary entitled Style in Painting.

Last year she worked as an assistant to her father on his latest film The Silence (Le silence), which was shown at 1998 Montreal World Film Festival.

“As best you can, love, hope and be patient. And maybe to suffer is not bad. We must have sadness and grief because we are alive.

We must endure hardness. That is the best there is. To know you are very small and life is very difficult and it is all beautiful, beautiful, beautiful… because you are alive.”

Her latest films are Takhteh Siah (The Blackboard) which won the second prize in Cannes Film Festival and Sib (The Apple) which has been a hit so far at many international film festivals.

She was also the youngest member of the jury at Locarno International Film Festival in 1998.

Director - Selected filmography

1. Two-Legged Horse | Asbe du-pa (2008)
   
2. At Five In The Afternoon | Panje Asr (2004)
   
3. Blackboards | Takhte siah | Lavagne (2000)
   
4. The Apple | Sib | La Pomme (1998)