How Samira Made The Blackboard
Filmfest 2006

A very substantial documentary, a video diary, by the director’s brother. It begins with a fifteen-minute recap of Samira’s life and career up to the making of THE APPLE. There’s some engaging footage of Samira reuniting with the two young girls from that film. The rest of the documentary consists of interviews and press conferences at Cannes, footage of the shooting of BLACKBOARDS, all held together by Samira’s voiceover... Samira addresses such issues as the position of women in Iranian society. As she points out, it’s a country where a man can lock his daughters away from the outside world, but an eighteen-year-old girl can direct a film about it which gets selected for Cannes. www.dvdtimes.co.uk