Blackboards

Set on the border of Iran and Iraq during the terrible war of the 1980s, “Blackboards” follows a group of poor teachers, blackboards strapped to their backs, as they attempt to educate the young Kurdish children who are some of the primary victims of war. But the young children who they see, largely orphaned and living in extreme poverty and hardship, are too busy working as smugglers to be convinced about the worth of education. Filmed in the rugged mountainous terrain of Kurdistan, “Blackboards” uses the most economic means of mise-en-scene and editing to create a powerful evocation of the terror of war. The bonds between men and women - marriage, family - and the sanctity of childhood are all shown as precarious in a context where chemical bombs and machine guns can destroy a whole community. As the teachers join the increasing load of refugees fleeing across the wild savage borders, we are confronted with one of cinema’s most moving expressions of the madness and evil of war. Samira Makhmalbaf, who was only twenty one when she directed this film, won the Grand Prix at Cannes, the youngest director ever to win the award. The cast of the film are largely non-professional and consist of Kurdish refugees who at the time of writing this catalogue entry (2001) still do not have a homeland of their own.