Drama · History
Blackboards
Itinerant Kurdish teachers, carrying blackboards on their backs, look for students in the hills and villages of Iran, near the Iraqi border during the Iran-Iraq war. Said falls in with a group of old men looking for their bombed-out village; he offers to guide them, and takes as his wife Halaleh, the clan's lone woman, a widow with a young son. Reeboir attaches himself to a dozen pre-teen boys weighed down by contraband they carry across the border; they're mules, always on the move. Said and Reeboir try to teach as their potential students keep walking. Danger is close; armed soldiers patrol the skies, the roads, and the border. Is there a role for a teacher? Is there hope?
Trailer
Top Cast
Said Mohamadi
Said
Behnaz Jafari
Halaleh
Bahman Ghobadi
Rebwar
Mohamad Karim Rahmati
Father
Rafat Moradi
Ribwar
Mayas Rostami
Young boy storyteller
Saman Akbari
Group leader
Ahmad Bahrami
Marriage registrar
Directed by
Samira Makhmalbaf
Production
Makhmalbaf Film House Productions
RAI CinemaReviews
CRCulver
5/109/13/2018
Released in 2000, <i>Blackboards</i> was the second film by Samira Makhmalbaf, daughter of acclaimed Iranian auteur Mohsen Makhmalbaf and a precocious director in her own right. As the film opens, a group of itinerant teachers lug blackboards into the mountains of Iranian Kurdistan, seeking to bring education to this illiterate, impoverished region in exchange for some meagre income. Two of the teachers quickly branch off from the group, and the film follows their adventures. Saïd (Saïd Mohamadi) falls in with a group of nomads trying to get back to their native land across the border in Iraqi Kurdistan. Rebwar (Bahman Ghobadi) meets a group of children transporting contraband over the border. The teacher's efforts to help the locals learn to read and write are rebuffed time and time ag
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