"As an 18-year-old girl who lives in Iran today and who faces very specific ideological, political and social pressures, I have a lot to say … Even though my film was not made in Iran, it shows my desire to speak of collective suffering, in Iran as well as in Afghanistan."
That's director Hana Makhmalbaf, whose feature-film debut, Buda as sharm foru rikht / Buddha Collapsed Out of Shame, was screened yesterday at the San Sebastian Film Festival.
Written by Marzieh Meshkini, the Franco-Iranian Buddha Collapsed Out of Shame is set in central Afghanistan's Bamiyan valley, where the Taliban blew up two rock-carved giant Buddhas in 2001. The film tells the story of a six-year-old Afghan girl's struggle to receive a formal education in a rabidly patriarchal society. On her way to school, for instance, she's met by other children who are ready to stone her.
Makhmalbaf's effort reminds me of Siddiq Barmak's 2003 drama Osama, in which a young girl (the Osama of the title) living under Taliban rule must try to pass as a boy in order to help her widowed mother and grandmother. The girl's suffering notwithstanding — and she does suffer in the hands of deranged Muslim males — the scene from that film that immediately comes to mind is a long shot of a little boy limping his way across a long, long hallway half-destroyed by bombs.
Hana Makhmalbaf quote: Agence France Presse
San Sebastian Film Festival 2007 – Zabaltegi (New Directors) Sidebar
San Sebastian Film Festival 2007 Gala Screenings
Toronto Film Festival Awards – 2007 Winners
San Sebastian Film Festival Awards – 2006 Winners
San Sebastian International Film Festival 2005 winners
I saw Buddha collapsed out of shame tonight and was profoundly moved by the children, the story, the context, and the movie. This was powerful movie making.