In Iran and Iraq’s postwar years, when Iraq bombs its Kurdistan, an old Iranian Kurd singer, accompanied by his musician sons, start searching for his ex-wife Hanareh. Hanareh, a women singer, has gone to Kurdistan in Iraq. The film is the story of the band’s journey, joined with their music. It is the story of a nation that has always been wandering. Being so used to war, they take it as a game and with their music they celebrate life.Read More »
Young Iranian Kurds (brothers and sisters) try to save the youngest of them, who is seriously ill.Read More »
Quote:
One of my most anticipated films at last year’s Toronto Film Festival was Bahman Ghobadi’s Turtles Can Fly. Ghobadi had directed A Time for Drunken Horses, a devastating film about Kurdish children on the Iranian side of the Iran-Iraq border. I knew that Turtles Can Fly was going to shift the focus over to the Iraqi side just before the U.S. invasion, and I was more than curious to see how he’d handle the political angle.Read More »
Synopsis:
Mamo, an old and legendary Kurdish musician living in Iran, plans to give one final concert in Iraqi Kurdistan. After seven months of trying to get a permit and rounding up his ten sons, he sets out for the long and troublesome journey in a derelict bus, denying a recurring vision of his own death at half moon. Halfway the party halts at a small village to pick up female singer Hesho, which will only add to the difficulty of the undertaking, as it is forbidden for Iranian women to sing in public, let alone in the company of men. But Mamo is determined to carry through, if not for the gullible antics of the bus driver.Read More »
Synopsis
A haunting love story that spans three decades, Rhino Season is based on the tragic story of a Kurdish poet and family friend of Ghobadi’s who was unjustly incarcerated during Iran’s Islamic Revolution. The victim of a personal vendetta, Sahel (Behrouz Vossoughi) is thrown into prison along with his devoted wife Mina (Monica Bellucci). Inexplicably released after serving a ten-year sentence, Mina is informed by the authorities that Sahel is dead. Heartbroken, she and her two children leave Iran for Istanbul — unknowingly leaving behind her very-much-alive husband, who is forced to stay in prison for another twenty years. Finally released, Sahel sets out to find his wife, the memory of whom was the only thing that had sustained him throughout his agonizing ordeal. But after clinging to an intangible vision for so many years, what is the reality that awaits him now?
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