Artlog

Bahman Ghobadi was born in 1969 in Baneh, a city near the Iran-Iraq border in the province of Iranian Kurdistan. When he was twelve, civil disputes forced his entire family to immigrate to the provincial capital of Sanandaj. Ghobadi studied industrial photography and film directing at the Iranian Broadcasting College, but he honed his filmmaking skills shooting short documentaries on 8mm film as he traveled and collected stories among the Kurdish people. By the mid-1990s, Ghobadi’s short films had begun to receive recognition in Iran and abroad. His short film Life in Fog√¢‚Ǩ‚Äùthe true story of a fourteen-year-old boy who provides for his siblings after the death of their parents on the Iran/Iraq border√¢‚Ǩ‚Äùwas a landmark in Iranian documentary cinema and formed the basis for his full-length narrative feature A Time for Drunken Horses (1999). The first Kurdish feature film in the history of Iranian cinema, Drunken Horses brought Ghobadi recognition as the country’s foremost Kurdish director. Ghobadi’s dramatic and documentary films explore the resilience and culture of the Kurdish people who live in the border areas of Iran and Iraq. Filled with scenes of beautiful yet extreme and harsh landscapes, the films tell poetic stories of people facing life and hardship with courage and joy.

Flaherty at MoMA: The Films of Bahman Ghobadi takes place on the occasion of the fifty-fourth Robert Flaherty Film Seminar, “The Age of Migration.” The annual Flaherty Seminar focuses on the art of nonfiction film, and each year MoMA presents a selection of the titles discussed. All films written and directed by Ghobadi, made in Iran, and in Farsi with English subtitles.

FILM SCREENINGS: Turtles Can Fly. 2004. Iran. Written and directed by Bahman Ghobadi. With Avaz Latif, Soran Ebrahim. Turtles Can Fly, set in a Kurdish refugee camp on the Iraq/Turkey border on the eve of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, was the first film made in Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein. Thirteen-year-old Kak is known as “Satellite” because he installs satellite dishes and antennas for local villagers looking for news of the impending war. As the dynamic leader of the village’s children, he also organizes the dangerous sweeping and clearing of local minefields. Satellite is smitten with an orphan named Agrin, a sad-faced girl traveling with her disabled, clairvoyant brother Henkov and a three-year-old child, whose connection to the siblings is slowly revealed. In Farsi; English subtitles. 95 min. Friday, July 4, 2008, 8:00 p.m., Theater 2, T2 Wednesday, July 2, 2008, 8:00 p.m., Theater 2, T2 Saturday, July 5, 2008, 6:00 p.m., Theater 2, T2

Life in Fog. 1999. Iran. Written and directed by Bahman Ghobadi. Following his parents’ death, a fourteen-year-old boy is forced to quit school and smuggle goods across the Iran/Iraq border to provide for his younger siblings. This true story also inspired Ghobadi’s debut feature A Time for Drunken Horses. In Farsi; English subtitles. 28 min. Daf (Tambourine). 2003. Iran. Written and directed by Bahman Ghobadi. With Hamed Mohamadi, Monire Zamani. The daf, a famed Iranian musical instrument crafted from sheepskin, holds special power among Kurds, as it is played at both birth and mourning ceremonies. In a Kurdish village near the Iraq border, Faegh, his three wives, and their eleven children make dafs; although the family members are all skillful players, Iranian cultural prohibitions dictate that the women play only in all-female gatherings, while the men play only among men. In Farsi; English subtitles. 30 min. Sunday, July 6, 2008, 6:00 p.m., Theater 2, T2

War Is Over. 2003. Iran. Written and directed by Bahman Ghobadi. A few weeks after the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime, Bahman Ghobadi set off on a journey to Iraq, ostensibly to screen his second film, Marooned in Iraq. In truth, he was searching for answers to all of his questions about Iraq and its people, and the resulting documentary captures the circumstances the Iraqis endured after the fall of Hussein. In Farsi; English subtitles. 57 min. Saturday, July 5, 2008, 8:15 p.m., Theater 2, T2

Marooned in Iraq. 2003. Iran. Directed by Bahman Ghobadi. With Shahab Ebrahimi, Faegh Mohammadi. During the Iraqi bombing of Kurdistan in 1991, an old Iranian Kurd singer, accompanied by his musician sons, searches for his ex-wife, Hanareh. Hanareh, also a singer, has gone to Iraqi Kurdistan. The film tells the story of the band’s journey, their music, and a nation that has always been adrift. The people approach life during wartime as a game, celebrating life through music, merging tragedy with humor, and improvising against great obstacles. In Farsi; English subtitles. 108 min. Thursday, July 3, 2008, 8:00 p.m., Theater 2, T2 Monday, July 7, 2008, 8:30 p.m., Theater 2, T2