Zamros
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I love world cinema. Whilst most are put off by their subtitles I find it very easy to follow if you're paying attention. And I think that's where it doesn't work for most people, it requires they pay attention.
You can't half-watch a foreign film while scrolling through your phone.
So I thought I'd inject my love of world cinema into this forum. Introduce you to some of my favourite directors from around the world. (yeah I get it, film is a collaborative medium, death of the author yadayada...)
I'll work alphabetically by country, otherwise I'll probably just end up focusing on Europe.
Next we'll be going to Albania, to check out the films of Gjergj Xhuvani.
EDIT: Here are links to the International Filmmakers Project & [url=http://filmmakerswithoutborders.org/]Filmmakers Without Borders.[/url]
You can't half-watch a foreign film while scrolling through your phone.
So I thought I'd inject my love of world cinema into this forum. Introduce you to some of my favourite directors from around the world. (yeah I get it, film is a collaborative medium, death of the author yadayada...)
I'll work alphabetically by country, otherwise I'll probably just end up focusing on Europe.
Afghanistan: Siddiq Barmak
Barmak hasn't directed a feature since then, however has continued to produce Afghan films. He currently runs the Afghan Children Education Movement which promotes literacy, culture and the arts. Rather than make his own films, he'd rather mentor Afghanistan's future generation of filmmakers in his craft, as Makhmalbaf did for him and so many others. I first discovered Barmak's work while watching a PBS frontline documentary about the Afghan war. After it had finished and I was again satisfied with the awesome work PBS puts out (Seriously Americans, please keep this channel alive) I noticed a film from 2003 titled "Osama" in the recommended videos section. I put it on, absent-mindedly thinking it was a documentary about the other Osama. You know... that guy.
I clicked on it and began watching. And it wasn't about that other guy.
Osama throws us right into Taliban-held Kabul by way of a faux-documentary. A child begs for money, a mother and her daughter try desperately to return home safely, all while countless women under thick burkas protest for their right to work. This being Taliban country, this isn't tolerated for long. This film takes a stunning look from the inside at the role of women in Afghanistan, and how they were continuously marginalised by a repressive regime. The titular Osama is a name given to a girl that becomes a boy so she can live a normal life, so she can go to school, so she can literally show her face outside.
It was the first film to be made in Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban and became a worldwide success after his mentor Mohsen Makhmalbaf's 2001 film Kandahar told the story of an Afghan-Canadian woman sneaking into the country underneath a burka in an attempt to rescue her sister. The film was picked up everywhere after the 9/11 attacks, shining a light on Afghanistan for the first time in people's minds in... probably ever. In 2002, spurred on by Makhmalbaf's success, Barmak returned to his country with friend, fellow refugee and filmmaker Atiq Rahimi (Dir. Earth & Ashes, The Patience Stone). They both hoped to use their art to help save their homeland.
Osama also became Afghanistan's first submission to the Academy awards, although none of their films have ever been nominated. Thankfully, Osama won the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film, so it's nice to see that the Academy have always and will continue to be completely up their own arse.
The lead actor, Marina Golbahari was discovered by Barmak begging in the streets. He immediately knew he had found his "Osama". Golbahari is an absolute tour-de-force for someone with so little experience acting. I almost felt like I didn't need subtitles to understand her at times, as her performance captured such raw emotion. She later went on to perform a Dari-language adaptation of Shakespeare's Love's Labour's Lost in Kabul. She currently lives in an asylum center in France, exiled from Afghanistan, after a picture of her and her husband at a South Korean film festival was released. A picture in which, Golbahari's head was not covered, eliciting death threats from her fellow countrymen. "Before, I dreamed of the future," she said. "Now I think only of the past."
Given the nature of the subject, be prepared for a damn depressing movie. The movie was originally supposed to end on a positive note, but thankfully Barmak realised how inappropriate and inaccurate it would be for any of these people to get their happy ending. At the end of the first screening, his distraught friends and family begged him to make his next film a comedy.... so he did!
Opium War is a black comedy about... you guessed it! The intricate manufacturing process of fine linens.... ok, it's about drugs.
It stars American filmmaker Peter Bussian, who met Barmak whilst venturing his project that I will call "Filmmakers Without Borders" for brevity's sake. Bussian plays a helicopter pilot who crashes into an Afghan opium field and must survive, lost in a foreign country.
The film makes a commentary on the titular Opium War which centuries ago is still leaving its ugly stain on the world in the form of the "War on Drugs". If you need an elaboration on what the Opium War was, here's an extremely oversimplified recap:
1. Britain Wants Tea
2. China Has Tea
3. China Wants Opium
4. Britain Has Opium
5. ???
6. Profit for the British, a century of humiliation for the Chinese.
Barmak, wanting an accurate depiction, obtained a permit from the Afghan government to grow real opium poppies. But because the "War on Drugs" is a thing, he had to continually defend his film set from Afghan Poppy Eradication Squads.
Opium War won the award for Best Film at Rome Film Festival, and again was submitted to but not nominated by the Academy.
I wish I could write more about this film but I know much less about it than I do Osama.
I clicked on it and began watching. And it wasn't about that other guy.
Osama throws us right into Taliban-held Kabul by way of a faux-documentary. A child begs for money, a mother and her daughter try desperately to return home safely, all while countless women under thick burkas protest for their right to work. This being Taliban country, this isn't tolerated for long. This film takes a stunning look from the inside at the role of women in Afghanistan, and how they were continuously marginalised by a repressive regime. The titular Osama is a name given to a girl that becomes a boy so she can live a normal life, so she can go to school, so she can literally show her face outside.
It was the first film to be made in Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban and became a worldwide success after his mentor Mohsen Makhmalbaf's 2001 film Kandahar told the story of an Afghan-Canadian woman sneaking into the country underneath a burka in an attempt to rescue her sister. The film was picked up everywhere after the 9/11 attacks, shining a light on Afghanistan for the first time in people's minds in... probably ever. In 2002, spurred on by Makhmalbaf's success, Barmak returned to his country with friend, fellow refugee and filmmaker Atiq Rahimi (Dir. Earth & Ashes, The Patience Stone). They both hoped to use their art to help save their homeland.
Osama also became Afghanistan's first submission to the Academy awards, although none of their films have ever been nominated. Thankfully, Osama won the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film, so it's nice to see that the Academy have always and will continue to be completely up their own arse.
The lead actor, Marina Golbahari was discovered by Barmak begging in the streets. He immediately knew he had found his "Osama". Golbahari is an absolute tour-de-force for someone with so little experience acting. I almost felt like I didn't need subtitles to understand her at times, as her performance captured such raw emotion. She later went on to perform a Dari-language adaptation of Shakespeare's Love's Labour's Lost in Kabul. She currently lives in an asylum center in France, exiled from Afghanistan, after a picture of her and her husband at a South Korean film festival was released. A picture in which, Golbahari's head was not covered, eliciting death threats from her fellow countrymen. "Before, I dreamed of the future," she said. "Now I think only of the past."
Given the nature of the subject, be prepared for a damn depressing movie. The movie was originally supposed to end on a positive note, but thankfully Barmak realised how inappropriate and inaccurate it would be for any of these people to get their happy ending. At the end of the first screening, his distraught friends and family begged him to make his next film a comedy.... so he did!
Opium War is a black comedy about... you guessed it! The intricate manufacturing process of fine linens.... ok, it's about drugs.
It stars American filmmaker Peter Bussian, who met Barmak whilst venturing his project that I will call "Filmmakers Without Borders" for brevity's sake. Bussian plays a helicopter pilot who crashes into an Afghan opium field and must survive, lost in a foreign country.
The film makes a commentary on the titular Opium War which centuries ago is still leaving its ugly stain on the world in the form of the "War on Drugs". If you need an elaboration on what the Opium War was, here's an extremely oversimplified recap:
1. Britain Wants Tea
2. China Has Tea
3. China Wants Opium
4. Britain Has Opium
5. ???
6. Profit for the British, a century of humiliation for the Chinese.
Barmak, wanting an accurate depiction, obtained a permit from the Afghan government to grow real opium poppies. But because the "War on Drugs" is a thing, he had to continually defend his film set from Afghan Poppy Eradication Squads.
Opium War won the award for Best Film at Rome Film Festival, and again was submitted to but not nominated by the Academy.
I wish I could write more about this film but I know much less about it than I do Osama.
Next we'll be going to Albania, to check out the films of Gjergj Xhuvani.
EDIT: Here are links to the International Filmmakers Project & [url=http://filmmakerswithoutborders.org/]Filmmakers Without Borders.[/url]
