Blackboards
Director: Samira Makhmalbaf.
In Kurdish with English subtitles
Groups of male teachers traverse the mountains between Iran and Iraq, like itinerant workers, looking for pupils. They carry their blackboards on their blacks, travelling from town to town and picking up work where they can.
This film follows the fates of two of these teachers as they separately move their way across the mountains encountering farmers, townspeople and nomadic groups. This film asks and answers interesting questions about education. How can people who have to dodge bullets every day value an education?
One of the teachers, Reeboir, meets a group of children who spend their days perilously smuggling stolen goods across the border between Iran and Iraq. How can children who live so close to death take time to learn to write their names?
The blackboards begin as symbols of education and
literally become a means of survival to the teachers
and the people they meet along the way.
An interesting and worthwhile watch.
Diana Davidson
