Mohsen Makhmalbaf
Date of Birth: 29 May 1957
Country: Iran
Biography: In his teen years, he fought against the dictatorship in Iran and was injured by bullet shots by the police and spent some five years in prison as a political prisoner. He lost the use of his legs as a result of torture and underwent numerous operations before he could manage to walk again.
He started story writing whilst in prison and turned to filmmaking following his release. He is, however, still fighting for human rights in Afghanistan, Tajikistan and Iran. In 2007 the Iranian secret pol
Total Credits at Criticker: 9 (Actor), 22 (Director), 28 (Writer)
Biography submitted by adiljun and picture by kangadoodoo
Find more information about Mohsen Makhmalbaf at The Internet Movie Database
Titles you haven't rated - Actor (9) | Director (22) | Writer (28)
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. (Kimstim Films)
An Iranian film about women whose problem is being who they are: women. (Shooting Gallery)
Nafas is a reporter who was born in Afghanistan, but fled with her family to Canada when she was a child. However, her sister wasn't so lucky; she lost her legs to a land mine while young, and when Nafas and her family left the country, her sister was accidentally left behind. Nafas receives a letter from her sister announcing that she's decided to commit suicide during the final eclipse before the dawn of the 21st century (imdb)
20 years earlier the director, Makhmalbaf, assaulted a policeman during the Iranian revolution. Now, that ex-policeman asks him to make a film about the event.
Everyday, 10-year old Khorsid takes the bus to his work at an instrument maker's shop and everyday something unexpected happens. (IMDb)
Documentary showing the life of children of the Afghan villages bordering Iran, and how their life and culture were affected by Taliban regime. (imdb)
An Iranian actor named Akbar is trying to become a serious actor instead of the clown everyone considers him to be. However financial problems force him to abandon his dream of being an artistic actor. He also has to deal with his family problems and his wife's inability to become pregnant.
Makhmalbaf puts an advertisement in the papers calling for an open casting for his next movie. However when hundreds of people show up, he decides to make a movie about the casting and the screen tests of the would-be actors. (imdb)
An elderly couple go about their routine of cleaning their gabbeh (a intricately-designed rug), while bickering gently with each other. Magically, a young woman appears, helping the two clean the rug. This young woman belongs to the clan whose history is depicted in the design of the gabbeh, and the rug recounts the story of the courtship of the young woman by a stranger from the clan. (imdb)
In the bombed-out ruins of post-Taliban Kabul, Noqreh (Agheleh Rezaie) lives with her conservative father (Abdolgani Yousefrazi) and her sister-in-law, Leylomah (Marzieh Amiri), in temporary refuge buildings. Although her father insists that she go to the religious school, Noqreh sneaks into a secular school for girls. Her teacher encourages her to run for class president, and she finds support from a refugee poet (Razi Mahebi), who introduces her to the work of Garcia Lorca... (All Movie Guide)
After twelve years of imprisonment by their own parents, two sisters are finally released by social workers to face the outside world for the first time. (imdb)
The wife of Nasim, an Afghan immigrant in Iran, is gravely ill. He needs money to pay for her care, but his day labor digging wells does not pay enough. A friend connects Nasim to a two-bit promoter who sells tickets to watch Nasim ride a bicycle continuously for a week... (imdb)
On his fortieth birthday, a man engineers a revolt against himself. He telephones his lovers -- all four of them -- and arranges to meet them at his dance school that afternoon. The women are shocked to discover that they have been sharing the affections of the same man. He arrives and tries to explain his actions... (imdb)
Images from the Ghajar Dynasty (1993) - Short Film
A short documentary made while the filmmaker was preparing his feature Once upon a Time, Cinema. The Qajar (aka Ghajar) family ruled Iran from 1785-1925. The film shows rare photos and early films shot at the Shah's court, along with family portraits. (catalog.wichita.lib.ks.us)
Consisting of three separate stories, the director explores "Man" as a theme: birth, life and death. (imdb)
Haji is severely traumatized by the war with Iraq. Back from the front, he's unable to adapt to civilian life. (imdb)
A father who has a young son with one leg and no other household members must go to India for some weeks. He hires another boy for a dollar a day to carry the son around on his back, to the school or to whatever whims may occur to the son. Actually the son is so skilled in jumping at really great speed, that he does not need any help or any "horse". The son's whims include not only verbal and physical abuse, but also repeated "horse fights" where "the horse" will continually be knocked down. (imdb)
Scream of the Ants could be described as Makhmalbaf's philosophies on life, religion and sex set against a series of visual tableaux. The "story" as such concerns a young Iranian couple who have journeyed to India to find "The Complete Man". Along the way, the couple, and a string of other characters, offer us pieces of Makmalbaf's philosophies.
Boycott is also autobiographical in nature.Makhmalbaf has depicted his own story in the form of a political activist who fights against SAVAK,secret police of Iranian Shah.This role has been played convincingly by Majid Majidi
A graduated guy has the chance to be one out of many being a dustman, he finds out some facts about citizens by their can's content.
The Gardener is a surreal film made using documentary-style techniques via the cameras of father and son (the Makhmalbafs) who go to Israel to learn about a religion (Baha'i faith) that they don't know much due to its taboo status in the country of both the filmmaker and the faith's birth - Iran. (imdb)
Mirza Ebrahim Khan, Mozaffar-e-din Shah's Photographer, travels past in time to introduce cinematography to the previous king who can afford to pay for the new industry. But Nasser-e-din Shah takes an interest in the actress starring "Dokhtare Lor" movie and becomes an actor.
The film is about an anthropologist and his daughter, and it happens during three different periods: Before, during and after the revolution. The daughter works in accidents and emergency department of a hospital, where they bring in different suicidal patients, whom have tried to take their own lives by taking drugs. (makhmalbaf.com)
A brutal dictator comes face to face with the injustices committed by his regime when his country is taken over by revolutionists. (imdb)
The silence of this sleepy little town is soon disturbed when the residents begin to receive threatening phone calls. No one knows who is making them. The police fail to find any evidence leading to the anonymous offender. It seems the further they investigate, the less they know. Is it possible that the whole town is in danger? An intense and captivating horror that is filled with suspense.
Lotafali khan dies of a stroke but he become alive again before being buried. He decides to seek forgiveness from the people he has wronged.