BIOGRAPHY:  

Born in 1954 in Gorgan, Ensieh Shah-Hosseini is a graduate of Cinematography. As a researcher and novelist, she has been a war reporter, documentary filmmaker and a professional screenwriter. Her novel won the best prize at Iran 20-year literature and her short film DEADLINE won the first prize at Women Film Festival 2001 in Seoul. "Goodbye, Life" is her second film which reflects her own life as a journalist of "Iran-Iraq" war.

FILMOGRAPHY

Short and Documentaries:

• WAR REFUGEES Documentary,    1981-1989
• DEADLINE Short Film,    2000
• BALUCH KIDS Documentary,    2002

Feature:    

• LET'S GO, IT'S LATE     2005
• GOODBYE, LIFE    2006

FESTIVALS:

1. Karlovy Vary Int’l Film Festival (30 June – 8 July 2006/ Czech Republic)
   Got a Special mention from the Ecumenical Jury “for the pacifist message and for the convincing way in which it emphasizes the community spirit, the power of sacrifice and love for strangers, which remains unaltered in the most cruel conditions of war”.
2. Fukuoka Int’l Film Festival ( 15 – 24 Sep 2006/ Japan)
3. Eurasia Film Festival in Antalya (16 – 23 Sep 2006/ Turkey)
4. Int'l Film Forum Arsenals (16 – 24 Sep 2006/ Latvia)
5. Eurasia Int'l Film Festival in Almaty (25 Sep – 1 Oct 2006/ Korea)
6. Gene Siskel Film School in Chicago(Oct 2006/USA)
7. Cinema Tout Ecran F.F (30 Oct – 5 Nov 2006/ Switzerland)
   Winner of Distribution Price
8. High Falls Int’l Film Festival (8 – 13 Nov 2006/ USA)
9. Denver Film Society (9 – 19 Nov 2006/ USA)
10. Museum of fine Arts in Boston (1Nov – 3 Dec 2006/USA)
11. India Int’l Film Festival (23Nov – 3 Dec 2006/ India)
12. Goteborg Int'l Film Festival (January 2007/ Switzerland)
13. Vesoule Int'l F.F. (13 – 20 Feb 2007 / France)
    Winner of the Audience Award.
14. Bireds Eye View (8 – 13 March 2007 / London)
15. Walker Art Center (16 March 2007/ USA)
16. Dereel Int'l Film Festival (30 March – 1 April 2007/ Australia)
17. Indianapolis Int'l Film Festival (25 April – 4 May 2007/ USA)
18. Silk Screen F.F. (11 – 20 May 2007/ USA)
19. Third Eye Asian Film Festival, Mumbai (1 – 8 Nov 2007/ India)
20. Sguardi Altrov Film Festival (29 Feb – 9 March 2008/ Italy)
21. Syracuse Int’l Film Festival (25 April – 4 May 2008/ USA)

REVIEWS:

By DEBORAH YOUNG

A film dramatization about the only Iranian woman sent to report on the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, "Adieu La Vie" (a.k.a. "Good Night, Commander") confounds expectations by heading in a wholly different direction from a Western war movie. Instead of a blustering, heroic heroine coming face to face with tragedy, first-time director Ensieh Shah-Hosseini empathizes with a confused, scared young protag whose chief goal is to hightail it back to Tehran. Pic was popular at the recent Fajr festival, and ought to have a fighting chance of finding some niche distribution abroad.
How close Shah-Hosseini's screenplay follows the true story is unknown, but in any case, the adventures of the unnamed journalist are absorbing and a bit hair-raising. Though pic sometimes gets lost struggling for antiwar symbolism, like its unlikely poster shot of a desert battlefield strewn with empty helmets, it generally keeps its nose to the ground as it follows its heroine from the frontline to an endangered village on the Iraq border.
Disguised as a man in army fatigues and a tightly wrapped scarf under her helmet, protag (Ladan Mostofi) wanders alone through a desert wasteland. It's later explained that she volunteered to report from the front after being divorced by a man who ruined her life. Her high connections got her the unusual assignment, but the army allowed her to do almost nothing until she jumped on a supply truck and escaped from her unit.
In the confusion of the front, she wanders from battlefields to field hospitals without being questioned. At last, she meets Beshar (a gruff Mohammad Mokhtari), not knowing he is a top-level commander, and tells her story. He gets her a ride to a village hidden between palm trees and marshland where she will be safe. But the village has just been attacked by the Iraqis, and the journalist is forced to migrate to another village with a local woman (Esmat Reza-Pour.)
A surprising amount of screen time is devoted to an ill-fated wedding party (the bride has been killed by the Iraqis), yet this directorial choice gives film a chance to explore the war's terrible toll on civilian life. Like last year's fest favorite "Gilaneh," also directed by a woman, it is on the edges of combat that the war's impact is felt most strongly.
Finale returns the journalist to the front, where she finds commandant Beshar wounded and carries him to a field hospital. Editing nicely circumvents the forbidden shot of a man and woman touching, while strongly implying a love story in the making.
Largely deprived of heroics, the attractive Mostofi creates a believable woman whose lust for life returns in the midst of death. Though she certainly demonstrates courage by being there at all, she is not above unmanly tears when pushed to extremes. The puzzle remains why, thrust into war correspondent's heaven, and with a telephoto lens peaking out from under her rucksack, she never snaps a picture or takes a note.
One wishes some of the pic's more illogical elements could have been avoided, like the protag's untreated arm wound which worries the viewer throughout the film. Shah-Hosseini's direction of big battle scenes is less distinguished than her personal touch in quieter moments, such as a shocking incident when the journo is beaten by a truck driver who thinks she is a man making unseemly overtures to his young daughter.
Tech work is professional, from Nader Masoomi's raw desert photography on down.
 
Camera (color), Nader Masoomi; additional photography, Ali Allahyari; editor, Kaveh Imani; music, Saeid Ansari; art director, Abbas Bolvandi; sound, Abbas Rastegarpour; special effects, Mohsen Rouzbahani. Reviewed at Fajr Film Festival (competing), Jan. 25, 2006. Running time: 95 MIN.
 
 With: Mahmoud Ghadesi

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