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Mohsen Makhmalbaf (Persian: محسن مخملباف ‎ , born May 29, 1957, Tehran) is an influential and controversial Iranian film director, writer, editor, and producer, whose films during the last ten years have been presented in international film festivals more than 1,000 times. As of 2002 he had gained 26 international prizes. He belongs to the new wave movement of Iranian cinema. Time magazine selected Makhmalbaf's 2001 film, Kandahar, as one of top 100 films of all times.^[1]

Contents 1 Early life 2 Career 3 Cinematic style 4 Influence of Makhmalbaf on world cinema 5 Filmography (written and directed by Makhmalbaf) 6 Films banned in Iran 7 Film appearances (playing himself) 8 Member of Jury 9 Life long achievement awards 10 Books on Makhmalbaf 11 Films about Makhmalbaf 12 Sources 13 See also 14 External links

Born into a poor family in southern Tehran, he had to work from the time he was eight years old, and before he was 17 years old, he changed his work 13 times. Before the Iranian Revolution he was associated with political activists while he was only 15 year old. Because of that he was jailed at the age of 17 for more than 4 years, and was let out of jail only after the revolution when he was 21 year old. After the revolution he abandoned politics, because he had believed that the main problem in Iran was the cultural one. So he began writing and making films. Life in jail 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.^[2]

Mohsen Makhmalbaf is of the main figures of Iranian cinema. From the start, Makhmalbaf has explored the relationship between the individual and a larger social and political environment. As a result, his work serves as an extended commentary on the historical progression of the Iranian state and its people. And if Makhmalbaf's films are at times polemic, he nonetheless brings a poet's sensibility to urgent and eternal issues--faith, love, regret, suffering, injustice--of the human condition. ^[3]

In 1981 he wrote the screenplay for Towjeeh directed by Manuchehr Haghaniparast. In 1982 he wrote the screenplay for Marg Deegari directed by Mohamad Reza Honarmand. He made his first film Tobeh Nosuh in 1983.

Boycott is a 1985 film by Mohsen Makhmalbaf, set in pre-revolutionary Iran. The movie tells the story of a young man named Valeh (Majid Majidi) who is sentenced to death for his communist tendencies. It is widely believed that the movie is based on Makhmalbaf’s own experiences.

Mohsen Makhmalbaf creates a spare and deeply affecting portrait of human despair, exploitation, and resilience in The Cyclist (1987).^[4] The movie is about Nasim, a poor Afghan refugee in Iran, who is in desperate need of money for his ailing wife. Finally Nasim agrees to ride a bicycle in a small circle for one week straight in return for the money he needs to pay his wife’s medical bills.

Time of Love (1991) is Mohsen Makhmalbaf’s ninth feature film and the first film of what he calls his "third period". It is a romantic trilogy that offers three variations of the same story.^[5]

Makhmalbaf directed Gabbeh in 1996. The film follows the nomadic Ghashghai people, whose bright, bold carpets tell stories. The main yarn features a young woman who loves a mysterious stranger, but is forbidden to marry him. Makhmalbaf attempts to follow the carpet idea by making his film dreamily romantic and non-realistic. Events seem to leap around in time and space, much like a dream.^[6]

Kandahar (2001) is a fictional odyssey inspired by a true story. It is Makhmalbaf's look at Afghanistan before Sept. 11, as the Taliban's laws strip women of civil rights and hope, and a Western-cultured Afghan woman returns to prevent her sister's suicide during the last eclipse of the 20th century.^[7]

He has also taught cinema for years in his film school. His family members who studied in his school have been very succesful in their career. Marziyeh Meshkini, his wife, gained thirteen international prizes for her film, The Day I Became a Woman, and his daughter Samira received the jury's prize at the Cannes film festival in 2000. His younger daughter Hana directed her first film Joy of Madness in 2003. In 2000 Boston University awarded Makhmalbaf its Special Prize.

Makhmalbaf also founded a non-governmental organization for enabling Afghan children to go to school in Iran; by means of changes in Iranian laws due to his campaigns, he succeeded in sending tens of thousands of Afghan children to schools in Iran.

He has also published 27 books, many of which have already been translated in more than ten languages.

Today he lives with his family in Kabul, where he is helping to build schools and hospitals. He has also assisted an Afghan director to produce a movie. His daughter Samira has also directed a movie in Afghanistan, entitled At Five in the Afternoon.

Makhmalbaf focuses on several genres, from realist films to fantasy and surrealism, from minimalism to large frescos of everyday life, with a predilection (common to Iranian directors) for the themes of childhood and cinema. ^[8]

Persian cinema in Afghanistan is slowly on the rise, after a long period of silence. Before the September 11 attacks, Makhmalbaf attracted global attention to Afghanistan with his celebrated movie, Kandahar. Kandahar was an attempt to tell the world about a forgotten country. Later on, Yassamin Maleknasr, Abolfazl Jalili, Samira Makhmalbaf and Siddiq Barmak made significant contributions to Persian cinema in Afghanistan. Siddiq Barmak is also director of the Afghan Children Education Movement (ACEM), an association that promotes literacy, culture and the arts, founded by Makhmalbaf. The school trains actors and directors for the emerging Afghan cinema.

In Tajikistan, Makhmalbaf is playing the same role as he played in the reconstruction of the cinema of post-Taliban Afghanistan. 1st Didar Film Festival, the first Film festival in Tajikistan, was held in 2004.

• Boycott (1985)
• The Street Vendor (1986)
• The Bicyclist (1987)
• The Marriage of the Blessed (1988)
• Time of Love (1990)
• The Nights of Zayande-rood (1990)
• Naser-ed-din Shah (1991)
• Actor (1993)
• Hello Cinema (1994)
• Gabbeh* (1995)
• Bread and Flower-pot (retitled Moment of Innocence for anglophone audiences) (1995)
• The Silence (1997)
• Test of Democracy (1999), with Farrokh-yar
• Kandahar (2001), brought him the Federico Fellini Prize From Unesco in Paris in 2001
• Alefbay-e afghan (2002) (The Afghan Alphabet, documentary)
• Monday Market (2004)
• Colder Than Fire (2005)
• Sex & Philosophy (2005)

• Time of Love (1990), banned since 1990
• The Nights of Zayande-rood (1990), banned since 1990
• Bread and Flower-pot (1995), banned from 1995 until 1997
• The Silence (1997), banned from 1997 until 2000
• Naser-ed-din Shah (1991), banned from 1992 until 1993

• The Marriage of the Blessed (1988), directed by himself
• Close-up (1988), directed by Abbas Kiarostami
• Hello Cinema (1994), directed by himself
• Bread and Flower-pot (1995), directed by himself
• The Test of Democracy (1999), directed by himself and Farrokh-yar

• Venice film festival (2006)

• Parajanov Award for outstanding Artistic contribution to the world cinema (2006)
• Federico Fellini Gold Medal, UNESCO (2001)

• Introducing of Mohsen Makhmalbaf and His Works
• The films of Makhmalbaf
• Mohsen Makhmalbaf
• Makhmalbaf's Broken Mirrors
• Like Light from the Heart of Darkness

• The Closed Eyes of Mohesn
• Close up
• Friendly Persuasion : Iranian Cinema After the Revolution
• Cinema Is Nation's Language
• The Dumb Man's Dream
• Who's Who?

This article first appeared in the Irana Esperantisto (Iranian Esperantist): Vidi kaj ne Vidi (To See and not to See), by Wikipedia editor A.R. Mamduhi (Mamdoohi), No. 3, Year 2, Spring 2003, 32 pp., pp. 3-5. Its sources are:

1. Persian book: Didan va Nadidan (To See and not to See), Mohsen Makhmalbaf, Tehran: Ney Publishing, 2002, 408 p.
2. Makhmalbaf Film House

• Persian cinema
• Hamid Dabashi

• Mohsen Makhmalbaf at the Internet Movie Database
• Firouzan Films Iranian Movie Hall of Fame Inductee Mohsen Makhmalbaf
• Screenplays by Mohsen Makhmalbaf
• Screenplays by Mohsen Makhmalbaf II
• Worlds Transformed: Iranian Cinema and Social Vision
• Mohsen Makhmalbaf: Retrospective by Donato Totaro (1997)

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