SYNOPSIS:

Mohsen Makhmalbaf whom is busy making the movie “The Door” on an island encounters many problems for making the movie with a 35 mm camera. The lack of facilities, censorship control on cinema equipment and the difficulty of working with non-professional and local actors have made him tired until his friend comes to see him with a Handy-cam. Makhmalbaf leaves the film-taking scene with a professional camera to go to the election scene in Tehran with his friend’s handy-cam,…
Director’s view
For me democracy in an eastern traditional society is like the image of a girl wearing a veil whom descends to a stormy sea from the sky with a election voting box.

BIOGRAPHY:

Mohsen Makhmalbaf
Born into a poor family in Tehran on May 29, 1957. He began to support his single mother since he was 8 and by the time he turned 17, he had worked as bellboy, plain worker and anything else he could find in the 13 jobs he went through.
A lower-class youngster in the poor southern districts of Tehran, Mohsen formed an under-ground Islamic militia group since he was 15 and by the time he was 17, he was shot and arrested while attempting to disarm a policeman. Expecting to remain in prison for much longer, he was released from prison shortly after the revolution in 1979. The 4½-year incarceration helped him to educate himself in various fields and gain focus on his outlooks on life and the Iranian society. This intellectual renaissance led him to distance himself from politics and find better satisfaction in Literature and the arts, especially Cinema. At this stage in his life, he strongly believed that the Iranian society suffers more from Cultural poverty than anything else.
Mohsen Makhmalbaf became a writer and filmmaker of the post-revolutionary Iran. His literary activities included research into the arts, novels, short stories and screenplays that were published in more than 20 books in Farsi, English, French, Italian, Arabic, Urdu, Kurdish and Turkish. He wrote, directed, edited and mainly produced 20 feature and short length films as well as writing screenplays and editing films for various other Iranian filmmakers. His films attended international film festivals throughout the world more than 1000 times and earned several awards from them. Mohsen Makhmalbaf has also been the subject of many films and books that were made about him and his life.
Since 1996, he temporarily abandoned his filmmaking career to teach. He formed the Makhmalbaf Film House in which he taught film to a select group of pupils including his own three children. He is currently conducting research for his upcoming film after 4 years of cinematic silence.

FESTIVALS:

Venice International Film Festival, New Territory Section. ITALY, 2000.
Pusan International Film Festival, South Korea 2000.
36th Chicago International Film Festival , World Cinema Section ,USA , 2000.
Museum of fine Art Boston ,USA , 2000.
Chicago Film Center ,USA , 2000.
Museum of fine Art Houston ,USA , 2000.
Mofest International Film Festival, USSR, 2000.
Rotterdam International film Festival , Netherlands, 2001.
Goteborge International Film Festival , Sweden , 2001.
Cinemateket ,Sweden , 2001.
The Festival of Iranian Films in Leipzig, 2000.
“ A retrospective of Mohsen Makhmalbaf”
The Festival of Iranian Films in Bangladesh, 2000.
“ A retrospective of Mohsen Makhmalbaf”
The Festival of Iranian Films in Yugoslavia, 2000.
The Festival of Iranian Films in Greece, 2000.
The Festival of Iranian Films in Macedonia, 2000.
The Festival of Iranian Films in India, 2000.
“ A retrospective of Mohsen Makhmalbaf”
The Festival of Iranian Films in New Delhi, 2001.
“ A retrospective of Mohsen Makhmalbaf”
The Festival of Iranian Films in St. Petersburg, 2001.
“ A retrospective of Mohsen Makhmalbaf”
Calcutta Film Festival, India 2001.
Moscow Film Festival, Russia 2001.
“A retrospective of Makhmalbaf film House”

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