Talking with Rivers (Mohsen Makhmalbaf) Iran |

Talking with Rivers
Mohsen Makhmalbaf
Iran. 2023. 50 min

Talking with Rivers is a conversation between Iran and Afghanistan, two neighbouring countries that used to be one land. The two countries are now sharing their stories after they parted from each other, from the era of Soviet invasion to the civil war and the Taliban era, up to and including the rise and fall of America and the return of the Taliban.

MOHSEN MAKHMALBAF

Mohsen Makhmalbaf is an Iranian director, writer, producer. He is known as one of the most influential filmmakers and founders of the new wave of Iranian cinema in the world today.

During his career, Makhmalbaf has made numerous critically-acclaimed films including Salam Cinema (Cannes 1995), Time of love (Cannes 1995) Gabbeh (Cannes 1996), A Moment of Innocence (Locarno1996), The Silence (Venice 1998), Tales of Kish (Cannes 1999), Testing democracy (Venice 1999), Kandahar (Cannes 2001), Scream of the Ants (Montreal 2007), The President (Venice 2014) and The Night of Zayandeh-Rood (Venice 2017) …

He is the recipient of more than 60 international awards from some of the most prestigious film festivals across the world.

His film Kandahar has been chosen as one of the top 100 best movies of history of cinema by Times Magazine. And his film A Moment of Innocence has been selected as one of the top ten best films of the ’90s amongst the director of world international film festivals.

As a writer-director, Makhmalbaf has also published more than 30 books, many of which have been translated and published in many languages.

DIRECTOR’S NOTE

During the past 40 years, I have directed and produced ten feature and documentary films about Afghanistan. I have launched and completed dozens of cultural and educational projects in Afghanistan and for that matter, for years I lived in various times in different cities around Afghanistan, closely witnessing the contemporary history of Afghanistan and the lives of the people. In all these years I have felt that the world has forgotten Afghanistan and unaware of the sufferings of the Afghan people and those who intended to help but failed, had no concrete knowledge and notion of Afghan society. This film is an attempt to explain the complexities of this situation in a plain and intelligible language.

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