The Tree of Life

‘When Saddam Hussein's regime fell in 2003, director Kasim Abid's family, along with many other Iraqi people, was ready to embrace change with open arms. They had survived the challenges of life under Saddam and looked upon a new future. But during the course of the 4 years that the director made this documentary, jubilance and hope subsided. Now crestfallen and frightened people gaze out from their rooftops over a city littered with bullets and shrapnel. Violence has encroached on their increasingly fragmented and chaotic lives. Abid's family had managed to stay together through the difficult years of dictatorship, but, like Iraq itself, it slowly fell apart. His brother moved to Northern Iraq, his sister and her family to Syria, and tragically Ali, the youngest of the siblings was abducted and murdered. This powerful film juxtaposes everyday occurrences with significant historical events, from the first democratic elections to the capture of Saddam, and shows how one family has struggled to cope with the massive upheavals that have torn their country apart.’ Munich International Documentary Film Festival

'In 2020 the coalition has left Iraq, which is left in civil war. A group of Iraqis are hiding beneath the earth and we follow their lives through the eyes of the boy Tariq, who is about to make a difficult decision.' Beofilm

'Mam Baldar, the winged uncle, is a postman like no other who, for many years, has travelled among the mountainous villages of Iraqi Kurdistan recording and delivering people’s messages. One day, a partisan commander asks him to make a recording of his newborn child’s first cry. Mam sets off to find the commander’s village and, once there, is informed that all the children in the area, as well as the commander’s pregnant wife, have been evacuated to a far-off valley. Mam at once heads out for the valley.' UMedia

‘Osama is the first feature production of post-Taliban Afghan cinema. Filmed in Kabul, it is a ground-breaking exploration of Afghanistan's social upheavals, telling the story of working-class women during the early part of the Taliban regime from the point of view of an Afghan national. With passionate commitment to his country's independence, writer-director Siddiq Barmak brings an insider's perceptions and an artist's dramatic flair to this devastating reflection on the past. While in exile during Taliban rule, Barmak was struck by the story of a girl who masqueraded as a boy to satisfy her hunger for the education forbidden to Afghan girls and women. Osama investigates their need for subterfuge through the story of a twelve-year-old (Marina Golbahari) whose widowed mother dresses her in boys' clothes to evade the repressive commands of the Taliban. After the new regime abruptly closes the hospital where the girl and her mother work, daughter must take on the role of son - legal male companion to her mother- so both may move freely through the streets seeking new work. We see the world through the girl's eyes as she changes gender, is renamed Osama and struggles to keep up her guise while adapting to military training and other new social and religious roles. The punishment for her deception, if discovered, could very well be death. Barmak sought his nonprofessional cast in orphanages and refugee camps: Golbahari, one of thirteen members of an extremely poor family, is now studying at a centre for street children while continuing to act in films. Fewer than forty short and feature films have ever been produced in Afghanistan and this project was completed with the financial and technical support of the Iranian Ministry of Culture and Makhmalbaf Film House. The film's close ties with Iranian cinema are evident in its images and mode of storytelling; Barmak acknowledges Mohsen Makhmalbaf and Abbas Kiarostami as profound influences. An accessible and devastatingly moving tale of desperation and ambition, Barmak's debut feature inaugurates an exciting new chapter in Afghan and world cinema.’ Barmak Films

‘With the return of their friend Ahmad from Germany, a group of old college pals (two married couples and a brother and sister, along with three young kids) decide to reunite for a weekend outing by the Caspian Sea. The fun starts right away as they quickly catch on to the plan of lively Sepideh, who has brought along Elly, her daughter's kindergarten teacher, in hopes of setting her up with recently divorced Ahmad. But seemingly trivial lies, which start accumulating from the moment the group arrives at the seashore, suddenly swing round and come back full force when Elly disappears in a troubling incident. Over the past few years, Asghar Farhadi has emerged as a preeminent creative force in Iranian cinema and has done so in part by making sophisticated dramas about the oft-overlooked Iranian middle-class. About Elly continues in this rich vein, distilling Farhadi's remarkable storytelling abilities as he brings us ever closer to the nexus of his characters' web of deceit and suggests that the victim of such dishonesty tends to be the least deserving.’ Kellen Quinn, Tribeca Film Festival

‘[Turtles Can Fly] looks at a contemporary Iraq stuck between old world and new, stones and satellites, violence and hope. In Iraq’s Kurdish north, Kak Satellite is a respected “electronics technician” who fixes the satellite antennas that bring remote villages their only news of the outside world. He’s also just thirteen, and living through a brutal war. Moving from town to town, Kak dodges periodic gunfire to install satellite dishes, often deleting (or adding) more “adult-oriented” channels for village leaders. His life is soon changed by the arrival of two war-scarred youths: Henkov, a boy whose arms were lost in a mine explosion, and Agrin, a girl whose scars are less obvious, but just as deep. A strikingly nuanced view of a situation most foreigners only understand through sound bites and satellite feeds, Turtles Can Fly lets its images communicate what a thousand speeches could never say. While working in actual footage of the war (in one scene, American soldiers interact with the actors, offering one a chunk of a Saddam statue), its focus is wisely never just “the war,” but rather the way that civilians survive within it. “Every life counts,” director Bahman Ghobadi insists, and Turtles Can Fly offers cinematic proof.’ Jason Sanders, San Francisco International Asian-American Film Festival

‘A poetic look at how violence and tragedy shape the lives and minds of children, from Iranian director Hana Makhmalbaf. Buddha Collapsed Out Of Shame is set in the Afghan town of Bamian, amidst the rubble of the massive statues of Buddha blown up by the Taliban in 2001, and follows the trials of a six-year-old girl who wants to go to the school for girls across the river from her home. However, the everyday obstacles she faces turn this small ambition into an epic struggle, with unexpected emotional and political resonance. After getting the money to buy a precious notebook, and taking her mother’s lipstick to use as a pencil, Baktay sets out to attend school. On the way she is harassed by boys playing games that mimic the awful violence they have witnessed. The boys want to stone the little girl, to blow her up as the Taliban blew up the Buddha, to shoot her like Americans. As the conflict spills out onto the playground,will Baktay be able to escape the violent war games and get to school safely? The film is a deeply felt political allegory of the impossible situation facing girls and women in Afghanistan today. Intimately told from a child’s perspective, including a world of make-believe that is both exhilarating and terrifying.’ Foyle Film Festival

‘I am not a sociologist but my film is sociological. My camera works like a mirror to show you the Iranian society undergoing a revolution with all its hopes and doubts.’ Hana Makhmalbaf

‘Ava, an Iranian girl suffering from depression, blames recent political events in Iran for her troubled mental state and goes to a psychologist. He advises her to take on physical work, and later, to work on a play. However, the play, inspired by the reality and problems of her society, is banned. It is election time. The city is alive with possibilities. A new wave of hope has sent people massing into the streets to participate, to vote against the current president. Everywhere there is singing, dancing, and action — a vibrant, passionate vision of a very different future for her country. But Ava still doesn't believe change will come. She leaves her home and talks to people in the streets, trying desperately to rekindle her own hope.’ Makhmalbaf Film House

‘A group of male teachers crosses the mountainous paths of the remote Iranian Kurdistan region. Carrying large blackboards on their backs, they wander from village to village in search of students. The sudden menacing sound of overhead helicopters forces the men to run and seek refuge from an unseen enemy … One teacher, Reeboir, ventures away from the group and confronts a group of adolescent boys who dangerously transport contraband goods between Iran and Iraq. Reeboir tries to convince the boys of the advantages of learning to read and write, but none of them are interested. There is no time for reading. They are too busy risking their lives to survive … Said, another teacher also now travelling alone, arrives in a seemingly deserted village. No one responds to his calls soliciting his services as a teacher. He persists, but is greeted only by slamming doors and windows … Said later meets a group of 100 or so old men accompanied by a sole young woman and child. They, too, are closed and uninterested in learning. Tired and hungry, the old men aimlessly continue their search to return to their native land to die in peace … One of the old men feels he can only find peace if his young widowed daughter, Halaleh, marries before his death. Said has only his blackboard to offer in exchange for her hand in marriage …’ Mongrel Media

‘The film’s story pivots between reality and dream. The smuggling of contraband goods, wandering and the people’s struggle to survive are real… The young must work hard to survive because their parents have not provided for them. Those young people don’t have much time to study. The aged represent the past generation which doesn’t have the patience to listen to others. For them, it’s too late to learn. They’ll just follow their same path. Bad souvenirs and collective memory upset them. That generation approaches the end of its life and wishes to die on its own land. That’s why that generation wants to return to its birthplace.’ Samira Makhmalbaf

‘Abu Amar, a Jordanian ex-Mujahid and father of eight children, used to run a supermarket that he named 'Al Jihad'. Now he gathers cardboard on the streets of Zarqa, Jordan's second largest city, in order to scrape together a living for his family. As his situation deteriorates Abu has to make a radical decision. This is a revealing and beautifully shot portrait of a desperate man, whose religious beliefs are put to the test in the face of humiliating poverty. Director Mahmoud al-Massad illustrates the tensions that exist in the city in which he himself grew up and which was also the place of birth of the notorious Al-Qaeda leader Abu Musab az-Zarqawi. Through the lives of Abu Amar, his family and neighbours, we are taken to the roots of Muslim fundamentalism, with its seemingly endless cycle of poverty and degradation that seems to produce an ever replenishing source of men who are prepared to take part in Jihad. "It really doesn't surprise me that someone like Zarqawi came from here," the director states. "There is a sense in Zarqa that there is really very little to lose by going to fight."’ Munich International Documentary Film Festival

‘Crimson Gold opens with a failed attempt to rob a jewellery store that culminates in a murder-suicide. One morning as the shop opens, the would-be thief shoots the sales assistant and then himself. Employing a similar circular narrative structure to Jafar Panahi’s previous film, The Circle, the story then goes back to show the events that have led to this tragic end. Hussein is a veteran of the Iran-Iraq War, on medication, and barely holding down his pizza-delivery job. He’s polite, honest and generous, but in this world that’s just not enough. He’s about to marry the sister of his best friend. She has no expectations in the way of materials goods, but somehow he still feels frustrated that he is unable to buy her the wedding jewellery that he would like to. This feeling of inadequacy is exacerbated as her goes about his daily pizza deliveries, getting a taste of how the other half live. Crimson Gold is fascinating for both the particular – life in Tehran behind closed doors – and the general – it could be a big city anywhere in the world with its portrayal of class difference and social imbalance. Abbas Kiarostami wrote the script, basing it loosely on a newspaper article.’ Anne Démy-Geroe, St.George Bank Brisbane International Film Festival

‘When Nahid Persson Sarvestani, an Iranian exile, set out to make a documentary about Farrah, the wife of the shah of Iran, she expected to encounter her opposite. As a child, Persson Sarvestani had lived in dire poverty, watching Farrah’s wedding as if it were a fairy tale. As a teenager, she joined the Communist faction of Khomeini’s revolution that deposed the shah, sending him and his family volleying from country to country. When Khomeini betrayed his promise for democracy, imposing more violent measures than the shah had, Persson Sarvestani was also forced to flee. Thirty years later, she needs key questions answered and goes directly to the source. Surprisingly, Queen Farrah welcomes her as a fellow refugee from their beloved homeland, granting unprecedented access. Over the next year and a half, Persson Sarvestani enters the queen’s world, planning to challenge the shah’s ideology; instead, she must rethink her own. When Persson Sarvestani’s prior opposition to the shah surfaces, the queen shuts down filming. Yet, in the struggle to understand each other’s experiences, an unlikely friendship has blossomed. Confronting Farrah about the shah’s repression has become not only a political conflict but a personal one, and Persson Sarvestani’s objectivity is shaken. In this gripping, poignant consideration of subjectivity as truth, we learn that people write history. And can also heal it. The Queen and I couldn’t be more relevant as we reach across our own political aisles.’ Sundance Film Festival

‘In a time when women’s rights are still a taboo in many Muslim cultures, one can only imagine how difficult it is to breach the subject of homosexuality. Homosexuality is forbidden by the Quran and condemned in Prophet Muhammed’s Hadith. As a result, Muslim homosexuals face persecution and often severe punishment under Sharia law. But most heartbreaking of all is the desperate confusion felt by those who do not wish to abandon their faith and the God they love, but cannot change who they are. A Jihad for Love gives voice to those struggling — a direct translation of the word jihad — to reconcile their homosexuality with their faith. The film follows different Muslim men and women in different countries from France to South-Africa and from Egypt to India. The fact that these people agreed to be part of it is in itself a show of tremendous bravery, evident by the many friends and acquaintances that choose not to show their faces. This is A Jihad for Love’s greatest strength: it tells the personal stories of those who normally dare not speak, which makes their plight all the more powerful.’ New Zealand Documentary Film Festival

‘Djomeh is a young Afghan working on a small dairy farm in the remote Iranian countryside. With his heart set on a local young woman, Djomeh turns to his employer Mahmoud to act as a chaperon in his pursuit of marriage. It is a bold gesture that crosses all cultural boundaries and forces the two men to tenderly reflect on the difficulties of solitude and the universal need to be loved. The film is an investigation of exile, and was awarded with Cannes’ Caméra d’or.’ Celluloid Dreams