MAKHMALBAF FAMILY

An Iranian family of film directors, screenplay writers, and producers.

One of Iran's internationally acclaimed film directors in the post-revolutionary period is Mohsen Makhmalbaf. His films are deeply social and deal with issues as diverse as an attack on police in the autobiographical Bread and the Alley, where he introduced innovations to the neorealist genre by having the original police officer play himself; to jail in Boycott ; to the aftermath of war in The Marriage of the Blessed ; to the situation of Afghan refugees in Iran in The Bicycle Run ; to film itself in Saalam Cinema. He has also made art-house films, including Once upon a Time Cinema. He was the subject of a film by a fellow film director, Abbas Kiarostami; Close-up is the true story of an ordinary man who impersonated Makhmalbaf to gain access to a wealthy Tehran family. Makhmalbaf caught international attention with his colorful film Gabbeh, after which he took a break from filmmaking (in 1996) to start the Makhmalbaf film house, where his wife and children have learned the arts of filmmaking, photography, and writing, and excelled in them. Samira Makhmalbaf, his oldest daughter, became at eighteen the youngest filmmaker ever to enter a film in the Cannes Film Festival with The Apple. His wife Marziyeh Meshkini won international acclaim for her film, The Day I Became Woman. His son, Maysem, is a photographer and has produced the stills for the family's films as well as a book on his father's film Silence and a documentary on Samira's film The Blackboards. Makhmalbaf's youngest daughter, Hana, born in 1988, has already made two films and published poetry. Her documentary on Afghanistan debuted at the Cannes Film Festival in 2003.

see also iranian revolution (1979).

Bibliography

Stardust Striken. Directed by Houshang Golmakani. 1996.

roxanne varzi