33 year old Samira Makhmalbaf, clad in black, sits on a plastic chair, patiently greeting many people who have lined up to talk to her. Someone hands her a canvas, a portrait of her in charcoal. She smiles. Her quiet, gentle demeanour belies the many laurels her work has won world over.

The eldest of the three Makhmalbaf siblings, Iranian director and screenwriter Samira is the first in her family to follow in the footsteps of her father, renowned filmmaker Mohsen Makhmalbaf. Yet today she is a force to be reckoned with on her own steam.

At 17, she was the youngest director to present her feature film, ‘The Apple’, in the Un Certain Regard section at the Festival de Cannes. This was her first feature. Films that followed, ‘The Blackboard’ and ‘At Five in the Afternoon’, also competed at Cannes, winning the Jury Prize in 2000 and 2003 respectively. ‘At Five in the Afternoon’ was the first feature film shot in Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban. Samira has been a member of the Jury at Cannes too, as well as of that at the Venice International Film Festival, the Berlin International Film Festival, the Moscow International Film Festival, the Locarno Film Festival and the Montreal World Film Festival. She is said to be a part of the ‘New Wave’ of Iranian cinema.

What was it like to grow up around your father? To grow up acting in his films and working so closely with him, even when you worked on your own films? What influence has he had on your personal journey as a filmmaker? Do you consciously think about distinguishing your work from his when you make movies?

I can say the first thing that my father gave me was the love of cinema, because there are a lot of filmmakers in the world but I don’t think that all their children are making films, or that they love cinema this much, or that they ‘continue’ cinema (as a legacy). I love my father a lot, and I saw his passion for cinema, and I wanted to discover cinema. And I remember when I was five years old, when I saw his film screened on the big screen, for me it was like a miracle. It was the best thing I knew.

Which film was it?

It was The Peddler. For me it was this miracle and I wanted to do the same thing. Also his personality… I think even if he was not a filmmaker he would inspire me in many ways as a human being. It is possible to just watch him and gain. Watch him searching for peace, and making the world a better world. Because, I think, his cinema is not just about making films. Cinema is not, for him, just an entertainment. So I think I have learned that from him. Also, he became my teacher, because I left school at the age of 15 and then he taught cinema to me. And then, our relationship is actually like four relationships: he is my father, he is my teacher, he is my friend and he is my colleague. These are different roles. And I can say he has been my biggest teacher, for the longest time, and if I have some influence of his, I’m proud of that. But whether my cinema is different from his or not, all I can say is that I think that as human beings we are different in many aspects. I am Samira and he is Mohsen. But ultimately it is for the audience to gauge from watching my films.

You were the subject of your brother Maysam’s documentary (How Samira Made The Blackboard) and your sister Hana also initially started off (Joy of Madness) by shooting you casting for your film (At Five in the Afternoon). What was it like being on that side of the camera? Being the subject…

Actually I just kept doing my job. I was very focused on the making and I was not conscious about being shot myself, about How Samira Made The Blackboard. I was doing what I had to do. Because I don’t make films like a very professional person who treats filmmaking like an industry. For me, making a film is like a very big belief in what I do. It’s a very big passion. And I believe it’s going to change something for at least one person in the world. So, in that moment, even though it is hard or difficult, as making films is a challenge, I forget everything. I forget myself.

But what I remember about Hana’s film, which started with me casting for mine, but which is a completely different film… what I remember is that, once or twice, I was very aware of her filming me. Because, you see, this was the first time after the fall of the Taliban, in Afghanistan. I was making a film there and women were not ready for that and they were scared of it— so you were very aware of what was happening around you. And you can see the real face of Afghanistan through my sister’s film because she was very young, just 14 years old, and her camera was not something very special. So sometimes they didn’t notice her and sometimes they would be surprised at how she didn’t listen to me. And thank god she didn’t listen to me (when I suggested to her that it may not be a good idea) and she made this film.

How Samira Made The Black Board is from when I was 18. I was in the festival with my first film The Apple and it was a big question for people. They always asked me, “Oh! You are a woman. You come from Iran. You are young.” You know, sometimes they said, “You are small. How can you make a film?” Very quickly after that, it came to my mind, “Okay. A filmmaker should be an old, big man, even European.” I wanted to make the film The Apple but it so happened that I became a symbol of women, young women, who can make films. And once you’ve made a film then you break this cliché and after that it’s easier. Because then people can think that, “Okay, if one can do that, others can do it as well.” And I think for my brother also it was something interesting to look at in my filmmaking, and to see how the process of it is. So, for that, he made the film.

How Samira Made The Blackboard:

The Apple:

At Five in the Afternoon:

It’s interesting that you say that, because the kind of films you make are very political. Their themes are very political. So when you make such films, do you feel as if a political role has been thrust upon you? You may not think of yourself as a spokesperson in any way but do you feel that people, especially Iranians, expect you to represent them in a particular way?

I feel my films of course have some political dimension and layer as well, because of living in Iran. Because politics is interfering with our lives in every single moment. If we want to think of something, the politicians and rules have to decide. They decide whether we can make this film or not— especially in Iran. Also they try and decide what we believe or, on some days, what we eat or what we drink, to whom we talk to… and all these things. So it is a case of politics interfering in our life. So when we talk about a human story, it also becomes political. And, of course, as a filmmaker, one can talk about every subject one wants to talk about. But for me, the first important thing is not politics, it’s human issues. Because, I think, if we take a relationship between two humans, and if we focus on that—say the relationship between two friends, or a husband and wife—if we focus on that and if it’s correct, if it’s good, if it’s humanistic and if there is peace in there, then it becomes peaceful and good in the larger view of things. So if we don’t find democracy at a place you will not find democracy even in the human relationships there. So they ask me, “You are Iranian? You are a woman?” I think before being a woman, Iranian, young, old, being born at this moment, or later or before, I’m a human. So I try to tell the story of that. The main subjects of my films are human issues. Of course, they’re talking about one’s culture as well, and they’re also talking about politics.

Besides the content of your films, is there a politics to your aesthetics, your form, as well? 

Of course. It’s an art, but I believe beauty and art can save the world. I’m an artist and, for me, creating art and beautiful things is one of the first things I care about. How to tell a story, how to picture scenes myself, how are the songs and the music of the film… I think a film is two things: what you want to say, and how you tell that. Both are important. I don’t think they’re very different. Content and form come together. The rhythm of a film is the film itself. The way you talk about it is exactly what you say. And, as I told you, my films are humanistic and also political. They are not just political. Of course, I also talk about the relationship between concepts such as ‘power’ and ‘the nation’. But where does power come from? From human relationships.

You use non-actors in your films. Do you do so to bring about a certain sense of realism?

Yes, I always work with non-professional actors in the films and I love it. I make films about real people. My inspiration comes from reality. So I want real people in the films. It’s difficult but if you can be patient and if you know what to do, it can be a miracle and magic. Because their reality and their imagination also come into the film. Their soul also, their story also, comes into the film.

How difficult is it, because they are not actors?

It is difficult and it is challenging but if you know what you need, then the result is great. And I have to say there are some techniques I use. It takes a lot of trust and faith and love. When I search for my actors I search for someone whose soul is similar to the soul of my character and then I don’t tell them the whole story. I just give them the general idea, but I don’t let them know every detail of what is happening.

Do they read the script?

No, I just tell them the general idea. And many times the whole script is actually written only after editing because something or the other changes while making the film. As they (the actors) come into the film, their reality, their real life or some part of their person, affects the film. Sometimes I explain things to them, sometimes I try to make them imitate me and sometimes I evoke something in them because I know that if I tell him or her a particular thing then he or she is going to show that character. So these are the things I do.

You mix real stories and fiction, which emerges from your imagination, in your films. How do you balance the two? 

About imagination and reality? I think that, for me, art is where reality and imagination make love together and there is this miracle that happens where you can’t tell what is real and what is imagined, where are the metaphors and where you are speaking directly. People see themselves in the film, but it doesn’t end there. It’s like in surrealism. I like the surrealism not of (Salvador) Dali, which is completely imagination, but (Rene) Magritte’s surrealism, in which there is some reality and at the same time there are one or two elements that are not real and you don’t know where the border between the two lies. Here is the window, you see that it’s real. But in the picture, in the painting, where the clouds come in, there is a little bit of surrealism, which I like. And this imagination comes from the first idea and also from the imagination of the character as well.

How do you think films are going to bring about change in Iran? Because you make films, your whole family makes films, but there is strict censorship within the country and your films are banned— so people can’t see them. So how do you think films can bring about a change? Can they at all?

I’ll answer this generally, not only about Iran. Humans in the world are suffering from lots of pain and much of it is because of the way we think. And cinema has the power to change the way we think and that is one of the reasons I am in cinema. And, also, I think cinema is like a mirror; you put in front of society and society and culture can see itself and if they find something wrong they can change it. So yes, I believe cinema can change the world for the better.

Do you think people in Iran are aware of the significance their cinema has across the world?

I think so, yes. And, especially, I can see that through my father’s films because it was after the (Islamic) Revolution, because he was thinking of the progress after the Revolution and everything. And artists are most sensitive to these changes. They think and they bring up what is happening in society. If there is pain, they feel that. If there is some beauty, they see that. Especially after the Revolution, we have good art cinema because of many reasons. Because of not having Hollywood in Iran and also because of censorship which puts a lot of pressures on filmmakers and artists. In another way it makes them stronger to search for what they want to say through cinema. To search themselves and our culture. So they (the filmmakers) went to poetry. And I think when there is some darkness, sometimes, you can find light and if you can find the light in the darkness that is very important.

Also Read: “Even our name is banned in Iran.” Samira’s sister Hana Makhmalbaf on her films, her father, her family and her politics.

Hana Makhmalbaf, 24, wears her conviction on her sleeve quite comfortably. Her ‘manto’, or Iranian overcoat, is a constant reminder of her homeland and, consequently, the suffering of her countrymen. And yet, she is equally interested in places and people outside of her country’s borders. Her films reflect the emphasis she places on looking at people of various nationalities as “humans first”.

Born in a family of filmmakers, daughter of acclaimed Iranian director Mohsen Makhmalbaf, Hana’s career in filmmaking began early. Some would say too early. At the age of seven, she acted in her father’s film ‘A Moment of Innocence’. When she was eight she started studying films at the fabled Makhmalbaf Film School. The same year she made her first short film, ‘The Day My Aunt Was Ill’. Her documentary, ‘Joy of Madness’, made when she was 14, premiered at the Venice International Film Festival and won the Special Jury Prize at the Tokyo Filmex, 2003. Her first feature, ‘Buddha Collapsed Out Of Shame’, was also critically lauded, winning the Special Jury Prize and the TVE La Otra Mirada Award at the San Sebastian International Film Festival. The film also won the Crystal Bear for Best Feature Film and the Peace Film Award at the Berlin International Film Festival. In 2009, Hana filmed the protests in the run-up to the Presidential elections in Iran and went on to make the docu-fiction ‘Green Days’.

What was it like growing up in the Makhmalbaf family. You are all filmmakers. What is it like, with all of you working around films? Do you discuss your work often?

Yes I was born in a family of filmmakers. My father is a filmmaker. My mother was always helping him make films. So most of the time, in my family, we’re talking about cinema. Even when I was a child. Even my games were about cinema. So it was always like that.

What kind of games?

I remember, for example, when I was 8 years old I made a film. The name was The Day My Aunt Was Ill, which was kind of a game because my family, they left me at my aunt’s house. So I started directing my cousins and it became a film because it was, kind of, all the games I knew.

How much of an influence has your father been in your personal journey as a filmmaker?

I was born in this family. I’ve lived with him for 24 years. I worked with him. He was my teacher. He has been my favourite filmmaker. I became a lover of cinema because of my love for him. Sometimes when I talk, I think it’s him inside my head talking. But of course, everyone has their own way of… I have been so influenced by him but it’s not like I am totally him. It’s like two different people, but of course I learned a lot from him.

When you are making your own film, do you consciously work towards achieving your own style?

It’s not that you decide to have your own style. I’m a different person. I don’t everyday decide to look like Hana, but it’s how I have been created. It’s me. I didn’t decide for a different face from my father but it is different. So my character, the way I make a film, the way I write, the way I talk, they are all different but there are some similarities at the same time. It’s not something you decide. Say, you give the same script to me, I’ll make it differently, my father will make another film from the same script and my sister (Samira) will make another. Because we are different. For example, I have grown up in a family with my sister (Samira) and brother (Maysam), we have all learnt the same classes, we have lived in the same atmosphere, but my sister, my brother and me we are completely different people. My sister is much more philosophical. My brother is more technical, more ‘new generation’. I am somewhat in the middle of both of them.

Did you study at the Makhmalbaf Film School? What is the style of filmmaking that is taught? I have read that it is different from what normal film schools teach. How is it different?

It was different. It doesn’t exist anymore. It was there for six, seven years. There were three kinds of classes in our school. The first group of classes was on how to live better, because my father believes that a good filmmaker is a person who can live alone for a long time and can live well. In those classes there were cooking, riding, bicycling, swimming— everything to make ourselves stronger. Like, I remember, my mom couldn’t bicycle at all on the first day. After the seventh day, she bicycled 52 km around an island. So a filmmaker should be strong because he or she has to stand on his or her knees from 5 am to 6 pm. We don’t sleep. So it is something to make us strong.

The second set of classes was all towards becoming a better human being; because being a filmmaker, it’s not just to make films, it’s to make films that change the world, it’s to be a better human. So those kinds of classes we had, like philosophy classes, psychology classes— it was also to find subjects and ideas from these classes. We had sociology and also we had Sufism, which I remember was in the beginning of these classes. We started to learn that these people (the Sufis), they had nothing. For example, they were forsaking everything they had. And then, at the end of the class, we were even giving away our own books, to learn how to give away.

So the third kind of classes, they were about cinema. We learnt everything about the technical parts of cinema, analyzing cinema, editing, photography, cinematography, being a DOP (Director of Photography), everything which is involved.

Do you think this style of learning filmmaking is something that can be taken out from amongst the family and given to others to learn as well?

Actually when my father started this film school, he asked permission from the government of Iran to allow him to open the school publicly. But they said, the government said, “One Makhmalbaf is enough for the whole country, we don’t need one hundred like him.” But, anyway, some of our friends, some of our family, and our relatives started with us. But they were such difficult classes. We were working, sometimes, for 16 hours per day, we were studying for 16 hours per day. I remember I was 10 years old… I was in the philosophy class eight hours a day and everyone was telling my dad, “She doesn’t understand it.” My dad was saying, “Even if she gets 20 percent of this class, or 10 percent, at this age… if she gets it, it will stay here (indicates her head) like the structure of her mind. But if she studies it later, even if she gets 100 percent, it will only be a part of her mind.” So it was so difficult, the classes. Some of the students left, later. Some of them attended only some classes, like scriptwriting— and they became scriptwriters. Some of them attended composition class and became photographers. A few students came along with us (her and her family), to be filmmakers, and are now filmmakers, like Mohammed Ahmadi and some other friends. But the first rule that my dad put for this ‘university’ was that no matter what you do, it doesn’t matter, the only rule was that everything you want to do, even swimming, you have to do it eight hours per day minimum and for a minimum of one month. So even if you didn’t know how to swim in the beginning, if you did it for eight hours a day for one month, after one month you were a trained swimmer. So you became professional. That was the only rule that we were following.

The first film (The Day My Aunt Was Ill) you made was when you were eight. What were you thinking when you came up with the idea? Did you have a conscious thought?

Filmmaking for me is not like a job. It’s not like a business. It’s love or passion. And when I was eight years old of course it wasn’t the way cinema is now for me. It was a pure love. But for that, I remember, the main idea came from a photo that I saw in an exhibition. There were a bunch of children painting on the floor and the photo was taken from up, from a top angle while the children were painting. And the next day, my parents, they left me at my aunt’s house to visit some festival… I don’t remember. And then my aunt got ill and she went to the hospital and we were with my grandfather. So we started to play and the idea I gave was this painting. But little by little, my cousins that were there as well—my brother was my cinematographer—they started to become jealous of each other. So because I was influenced by films from my dad’s kind of cinema, I said let’s bring it all in front of camera and, as you can see in the film, I’m directing them in front of the camera and the ‘behind-the-scene’ and the ‘scene’ itself is mixed, and it’s shot that way because my brother was shooting all of us.

You shot the making of your sister Samira’s film.

I made a film called Joy of Madness. It’s a documentary film about her casting in Afghanistan. It was the casting of At Five in the Afternoon. But actually, though it was supposed to be a behind-the-scenes, it turned out in another way because, when she was trying to cast people, for one month everybody was afraid of her, everybody there didn’t want to act in the film. They were afraid of cinema, they were afraid of everything— their burqa, the Taliban, everybody. So I decided to change the subject of the film to the fear of Afghan women in general.

Because of the acclaim you get as a family of filmmakers, and for your own work, do you feel that somewhere you are representatives of your country politically, outside of the country?

It depends on what film I’m making. If it’s on Iran, of course I’m representative of Iranian people. But before anything else, I think I’m representative of human beings— whatever pain they have that I’m talking about. Then I’m representative of that. Of course, I will never forget my people in my country and the suffering they have. I always wear my manto, even when I’m outside of Iran, not to forget their pain. But I think we have to take off these borders that we put mentally for ourselves and think of the human being first and then think of women… then anything else that comes after.

But do you feel, when you go around making your film, that somewhere people expect you to explain the politics of Iran to them? Be a representative of that side of Iran to the world outside?

Actually I have made Green Days which is a docu-fiction film on the election in Iran. It was about exactly the same problem because, some of the people— they wanted to vote but they weren’t political people. American people, Indian people, they go to vote and none of them get killed for what they voted for. But people, normal people, very ordinary people, they went to vote and then the next day they got killed. They weren’t political but they got killed because of political reasons. That’s why in my country, everything at a point became political. The government brought politics inside people’s houses and it’s not something you can forget. You have to manage to live within it every day. Even the religion is political, is something that the government puts on you. Even my clothes… it’s something (clothes) that the government puts on people. So yeah.

Personally, what are you trying to explore as a filmmaker?

Everything you do in life, you are exploring it and going deeper and deeper. At first it’s a question for yourself, and then it becomes an idea, then it becomes the script, then it becomes the film. But when you go all the way back, it was a question that started it, and you want to put this question clearly in front of the society. That’s why you start to make that film.

For example, Buddha Collapsed Out Of Shame— it was a question for me at the beginning: What will happen to these children who are all in front of us? Then I was going and staying with my mother, who was a scriptwriter. Staying in the middle of Afghanistan in Bamiyan city. Then, little by little, I was seeing what was happening and that was the journey you can see in the film. This thing that you see in the film is the journey that I went through and that is the fruit of all the exploration. (The film is the story of a five year old Afghan girl attempting to attend school. It is set in the Bamiyan valley where the statues of the Buddha were destroyed by the Taliban in 2001.)

A scene from Buddha Collapsed Out Of Shame:

Are you working on anything right now?

I edited a short film of my dad’s and I produced a film for him. But making a film, as I said, is not a business for me. So I don’t make anything unless it touches me. It has to be something that I want to say. There is a pain that I feel and I say, “Oh my god I want to say this, and I know I can say it.” So I’m looking for that pain that I want to show to the world.

Iranian cinema has become very prominent in the world. How aware do you think the people of Iran are, generally speaking, of the significance their cinema?

Actually, 30 years ago, before the (Islamic) Revolution, we were making about 70 movies a year. Because of the Hollywood cinema in our country, because of the competition between Iranian cinema and Hollywood cinema, Iranian cinema was losing out, because people wanted to watch those (Hollywood) films. Then, after the Revolution, they banned the Hollywood films. Then Iranian cinema had to make its own films for its own people. So again the industry produced almost 70 films per year. And when the films started going around the world because of the New Wave in Iranian cinema, the poetic realism that was inside them, Iranian cinema won some two thousand awards, one hundred of them being won by just my family. All the Iranian people, they were interested in this even though they weren’t very interested in artistic cinema. They were saying, “Let’s see what we are proud of. Let’s see why we are attracting attention.” So they started watching such films and then they realized, later on, what this cinema was.

A lot of these films, including your family’s films, are banned in Iran, or censored. How do you see filmmakers combating that? How do you get those films across to your own people?

Eight years ago, eight films from my family were banned and six years ago all them were banned. Everything. Even our name is banned in Iran. But all our films are in the black market and they are available in the best quality. For example, my last film Green Days, the day it was shown at the Venice Film Festival, on its premiere, I decided to show it on BBC Persia to the Iranian people as a gift, so they could see it at the same time as the world premiere, on BBC Persia. So that’s the other way at this point. And the black market. Because of the people’s interest they go and look for it and find it.

A scene from Green Days:

Also Read: “I want real people in the films.” Hana’s sister Samira Makhmalbaf on her films, her process, her philosophy and her family.

A quick Q and A with writer and poet Anjum Hasan.

Your first film-related obsession?

Dead Poets Society. A whole film about poetry, wow!

One thing you miss about the way in which you saw movies as a child?

The complete immersion. Not being able to tell the difference, and not caring for the difference, between a classic and a tearjerker, a bad film and a good one.

The worst book to film adaptation?

Lolita. Both the versions. I don’t think it’s possible for film to really capture Humbert Humbert’s poet’s eye or, indeed, his dirty mind!

If you were to adapt a film to a book, it would be…

Lars Von Trier’s Breaking the Waves. The spiritual trauma of the characters would lend itself excellently to reams of anguished Dostoevskian prose.

A sequence/ character/ plot in any of your books that might be inspired by cinema (by the medium itself or a particular film)?

I love the way Guillermo Arriaga writes films (Amores Perros, Babel, 21 Grams)— how unrelated events slowly and ineluctably collide, and how the fates always have the upper hand. I tried his technique in my story ‘Saturday Night’ in my recent short fiction collection Difficult Pleasures.

Do you read film reviews? What good are they?

I think Baradwaj Rangan, Pradeep Sebastian and Jai Arjun Singh are excellent film critics whose reviews are always a pleasure to read as of themselves and not just as pointers to which films to watch or avoid.

In a movie version of your life who would play you? Who would you have liked to play you?

I would have liked to play myself but I don’t act and, for better or for worse, my life is not a movie!

What book of yours could be made into a film?

I think all the fiction. The poems might be harder though there have been attempts to make those into films too.

Who would you like it to be directed by?

The documentary filmmaker Nishtha Jain. She’s one of the few film artists around.

Who would you cast as who (you could name any or all characters)?

I would leave that to Nishtha. I don’t know anything about casting!

One male actor you’ve always loved?

Matti Pellonpää, the deadpan, underdog hero of so many Aki Kaurismäki films.

One actress you absolutely adore?

Kajol.

What fictional characters would you like to see both of the above play?

Pellonpää as Hamlet. And Kajol as Madame Bovary.

One writer whose biopic would definitely be A-Rated?

Hunter S. Thompson.

A writer whose biopic you want to see?

Qurratulain Hyder. To see her life on screen would be to rediscover a whole lost aristocratic North Indian world.

One non-fiction title that could make for a good film?

William Dalrymple’s The Last Mughal. I would love to see how the Delhi looked through Mughal eyes.

One thing that the novel can do which a film can’t?

A novel can tell you what a person is thinking and how different that sometimes is from what she is saying.

One thing the film can do that a novel can’t?

A film can make you jump out your skin.

A film that made you very happy?

Juno. I love talky American films.

A film that made you cry?

Lukas Moodysson’s Lilya 4-ever. And whenever Shah Rukh Khan cries, I cry, no matter how much I’m laughing at myself with the other half of my head.

A film you keep re-watching?

David Lynch’s Mullholland Drive.

A film you would recommend for its dialogues?

Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

A film every writer must see?

The Shining— however bad your writer’s block is, it can’t be as bad as this!

Your favourite film on writing/ a writer?

An Angel at my Table— about the New Zealander writer Janet Frame.

If you ever made a film it would it be…

…a complete flop because I think in words not images.

A film script you would like to read?

The Big Lebowski. Another talky American film, perhaps one of the best.

A film you wish you had written?

Take Care of Your Scarf, Tatiana.

One underrated film?

Mahesh Bhatt’s Saaransh.

One highly rated film that did not work for you?

Love, Sex aur Dhokha.

Name one male and one female character from the movies who you could imagine having an interesting conversation with?

The Wizard of Oz, maybe. And Alice in Wonderland!

Anjum Hasan is the author of the short fiction collection Difficult Pleasures, the novels Neti, Neti and Lunatic In My Head, as well as the book of poems Street On The Hill. Hasan has published poems, short fiction, essays and reviews in various anthologies and journals. She is also Books Editor at The Caravan, a journal of politics and culture.