Iran,
1995, 75 min
Shown in 1996
CREDITS
- dir
-
Mohsen Makhmalbaf
- prod
-
Abbas Randjbar
- scr
-
Mohsen Makhmalbaf
- cam
-
Mahamoud Kalari
- editor
-
Mohsen Makhmalbaf
- cast
-
Azadeh Zangeneh, Maryam Keyhan, Feyzolah Ghashghi, Shaghayegh Djodat
- source
-
MK2 Diffusion
OTHER
The famous Iranian director Mohsen Makhmalbaf places a casting ad for 100 actors in a Tehran newspaper. Five thousand people show up and a riot ensues. Nearly everyone, it seems, wants to be a movie star (although one woman says she merely wants to go to Cannes for free). The director holds screen tests; and several dozen people sing, dance or show off altogether stranger talents. Some think they look like Paul Newman or Marilyn Monroe. The applicants—funny, brash and utterly touching—are a vivid array of people—intellectuals, students, children and, above all, women—whose lives would not normally emerge from the shadows in this way. Like many Iranian films, Salam Cinema blurs the line between fiction and documentary (it’s not even clear whether the auditions themselves were scripted). Director Mohsen Makhmalbaf plays himself in a wry, deft performance that walks a tightrope between fact and fiction. In a bravura display of personal and political self-analysis, he portrays an enlightened despot who plays with the wishes of the people. Without exception, the would-be stars talk about the important place of cinema in everyday life, as well as about their own lives. Salam Cinema, intended by the director as an homage to cinema on its centenary, is a sly and captivating look at film and life in a country seldom seen from the inside.
FACTOID #147
The Coppola clan (Francis, Eleanor, Sofia and Roman) is the family with the most filmmakers represented at the Festival. Films screened include Apocalypse Now (1990); One from the Heart (1990); Lick the Star (1998); The Virgin Suicides (2000); CQ (2002); and On the Set of CQ (2002). (And that’s not even counting onscreen appearances by cousins Nic Cage and Jason Schwartzman.)
