Six Close Encounters 2015 / Nun va Goldoon / Iran, France 1996
Mark Cousins presents
At the age of seventeen Mohsen attended a protest rally and stabbed a policeman in self-defence. Twenty years later, now a well-known director, he holds an open casting for a film and his long-standing adversary turns up for the auditions as well. With the man’s help, Mohsen decides to reconstruct what happened in his new work and, in so doing, he endeavours to answer the questions which had weighed him down all this time.
One day a man stops by the family home of Mohsen Makhmalbaf (played by the director himself) who tells him he has an interest in one of the roles in his new film. Yet this isn’t the first time the two men have met. It turns out that the unexpected guest is the former policeman whom Mohsen stabbed twenty years earlier as he attempted to take his gun during a revolt against the shah’s regime. Although the director could never have predicted it, this dramatic event, which fundamentally influenced the lives of both men, serves as the theme of a film in which the protagonists decide to reconstruct the past. Makhmalbaf, who was sentenced to a five-year prison term in the 1970s, tells a powerful story where he examines his own history while providing a vehement commentary on the political atmosphere of the time. Today the director’s testimony has lost nothing of its urgency, and the combination of his documentary and feature-film approaches renders A Moment of Innocence a highly respected contribution to world cinema.
Sandra Hezinová
78 min / Color, 35 mm
Director Mohsen Makhmalbaf
/ Screenplay Mohsen Makhmalbaf
/ Dir. of Photography Mahmoud Kalari
/ Music Madjid Entezami
/ Editor Mohsen Makhmalbaf
/ Art Director Reza Alagheband
/ Producer Abolfazi Alagheband
/ Production Makhmalbaf Productions
/ Coproduction MK2 Productions
/ Cast Mirhadi Tayebi, Mohsen Makhmalbaf, Ali Bakhsi
/ Sales Makhmalbaf Film House
Mohsen Makhmalbaf (b. 1957) was born in a deprived suburb of Tehran. In his young days he was part of the radical Islamic opposition movement and, after spending some five years in prison, he decided to forge a filmmaking career. Many of his almost thirty films have played at some of the world’s most prestigious festivals, including the IFFs in Cannes, Venice and Locarno, nevertheless they were frequently banned back in Iran. Together with Jafar Panahi and Abbas Kiarostami he is one of the best known representatives of the Iranian New Wave. In 2009, three years after Makhmalbaf emigrated, his works were banned altogether in Iran. Selected filmography: The Cyclist (1989), A Moment of Innocence (1996), The Silence (1998), Kandahar (2001), Scream of the Ants (2006), and The President (2014). His daughters Samira and Hana Makhmalbaf are also film directors.
Makhmalbaf Film House
, 14157, Tehran
Iran
Fax: +98 218 952 200
E-mail: [email protected]
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