Nun va goldun
Iran,
1996, 78 min
Shown in 1997
CREDITS
- dir
-
Mohsen Makhmalbaf
- prod
-
Abolfazl Alagheband
- scr
-
Mohsen Makhmalbaf
- cam
-
Mahmoud Kalari
- editor
-
Mohsen Makhmalbaf
- cast
-
Ali Bakhshi, Mirhadi Tayebi, Ammar Tafti, Maryam Mohamadamini, Mohsen Makhmalbaf
- source
-
MK2 Diffusion, 55, rue Traversière, 75012 Paris, France. FAX: 33 -1-43-41-32-30
OTHER
Fact meets fiction in the most intriguing fashion in Mohsen Makhmalbaf's latest feature. This captivating followup to his acclaimed Salam Cinema (1995), which told the stories of ordinary Iranians who want to become movie stars, is based on an incident from the Iranian screenwriter and director’s youth. At age 17—while a member of an anti-Shah militant group—Makhmalbaf attacked a policeman in an attempt to steal his gun. He stabbed the officer with a knife and took a bullet in return. The policeman went to the hospital; Makhmalbaf went to a torture chamber hosted by the dreaded SAVAK secret police. He stayed there until the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Twenty years later, the filmmaker placed an ad in the paper to recruit actors for Salam Cinema. The same wounded officer responded to the ad. In A Moment of Innocence, the victim and the assailant both get the chance to tell their side of the story. In the process, they exorcise the demons of their past while examining how film and memory shape our perceptions. The result has been hailed as a sly, witty film with a script honed to razor sharpness and carefully hewn characters. It’s “a wisp of a pic,” Variety opined recently, "that continues to resonate long after higher profile arty stodge has sunk without a trace."
FACTOID #217
A sporadic SFIFF tradition, fashion shows are lighthearted affairs that help raise funds for the Festival. In 1968, Oakland designer Richard Tam mounted a show at the Fairmont Hotel that attracted high society; the Examiner commented that the show ’combined Tam’s simple daytime elegance with his almost theatrical evening gowns.’
