This prize-winning film (Cannes and AFI) by a young Iranian woman, Samira Makhmalbaf, follows a group of male teachers who carry large blackboards on their backs as they wander, village to village, in search of students in remote Iranian Kurdistan.

Blackboards (, Takhté siah) is a 2000 Iranian film directed by Samira Makhmalbaf. It focuses on a group of Kurdish refugees after the chemical bombing of Halabja by Saddam Hussein's Iraq during the Iran–Iraq War. The screenplay was co-written by Makhmalbaf with her father, Mohsen Makhmalbaf. The dialogue is entirely in Kurdish. Makhmalbaf describes it as "something between reality and fiction. Smuggling, being homeless, and people’s efforts to survive are all part of reality... the film, as a whole, is a metaphor."

The film was an international co-production between the Makhmalbaf Productions of Iran, the Italian companies Fabrica and Rai Cinemafiction and the Japanese company T-Mark.

Cast

* Said Mohamadi as Said

* Behnaz Jafari as Halaleh

* Bahman Ghobadi as Reeboir

* Mohamad Karim Rahmati as Father

* Rafat Moradi as Ribvar

Awards

* "Jury Prize", Official Competition section of the 2000 Cannes Film Festival, France.

* "Federico Fellini Honor", UNESCO, Paris, 2000.

* "Francois Truffaut prize", Giffoni Film Festival in Italy 2000.

* "Giffoni's Mayor Prize", Giffoni Film Festival, Italy, 2000.

* "Special cultural Prize", UNESCO, Paris, 2000.

* "The Grand Jury prize", American Film Institute, USA, 2000

References

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