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Iran
bans "Half Moon" as it premieres at Toronto film festival |
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Iran bans "Half Moon" as it premieres at
Toronto film festival 11.9.2006
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TORONTO, --
Kurdish director Bahman Ghobadi learned this week as
his film "Half Moon" premiered at the Toronto film
festival that Iranian authorities had banned its
release back home, he told
AFP late Friday.
"Two days ago, they banned my film and ruined my
career," he said in an interview in Toronto. "(The
minister of culture) told me: 'Don't think about
this film, think about your next project.'"
The film ("Niwemang" in Farsi) follows an iconic,
but aging Kurdish musician Mamo (Ismail Ghaffari) in
poor health who leads his sons and a woman with a
"celestial voice" from Iran to Iraq for a concert to
celebrate the fall of Saddam Hussein and the end of
his censorship of Kurdish music.
The film is based on true events, but is "not
political", Ghobadi insists.
However, it apparently flouts Iranian law, which
forbids Kurds and women in mixed company from
singing in public since Iran's Islamic revolution in
1979.
The drama, filmed in Iran and Iraq, gives a voice to
both Iranian Kurds and women by showing scenes of
Kurdish women singing, accompanied by a musical
ensemble.
"If I had known that my film was going to be banned
I would have put in more music, I would have used
more instruments," Ghobadi said. |
Kurdish Director Bahman Ghubadi
Photo : Internet |
The film also touches on the delicate subject of a
proposed Kurdish state that would pan Iran, Iraq and
Turkey -- which national governments in all three
countries oppose.
"I never wanted to get in a situation like this,"
Ghobadi said. "But this time I want to defend my
film. For a long time as filmmakers and artists, we
censored ourselves."
"None of my films are political ... But, living in
Iran is political."
The movie is Ghobadi's fourth feature film after his
Cannes prize-winning "A Time for Drunken Horses"
(2000), "Marooned in Iraq" (2002) and "Turtles Can
Fly" (2004).
Other Iranian films shown at the Toronto film
festival include Niki Karimi's "A Few Days Later,"
Rakhshan Bani- Etemad and Mohsen Abdolvahab's
"Mainline," "Offside" by Jafar Panahi, and the
Canadian-Iranian co-production "Mercy" by Mazdak
Taebi.
AFP
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