Director: Samira Makhmalbaf
Script: Mohsen MakhmalbafSamira Makhmalbaf
Director of Photography: Ebrahim Ghafouri
Sound: Behrouz ShahamatMusic: Mohammad Reza DarvishiEdit: Mohsen Makhmalbaf
After the chemical bombing of Halabcheh in Iraq a number of Kurd refugee teachers seek for pupils who are willing to educate around the border as they carry their blackboards like Jesus’ crosses. One of them encounters a group of teenage smugglers and tries to convince them to educate as they carry their heavy backpacks full of smuggled stuff. The other teacher encounters a group of old and tired men, whom after years of migration are going to their own country to die there. But it seems that hunger and insecurity has not left and chance for the education of the generations.
The Blackboard (Script Outline)
Mohsen Makhmalbaf
(1999)
A dirt road in the heart of the mountains, day time:
Men with Kurdish costumes carrying blackboards on their backs appear from the turns and twists of the mountain road ahead. From the group, we hear a man who we’ll call “the first teacher” complaining to another teacher. He regrets becoming a teacher and having to spend the rest of his life wandering in vain, searching for students unwilling to study. A vague sound roars through the mountains. The teachers are worried. The sound is getting closer and closer. The teachers run and hide under the blackboards not to be seen by the helicopters passing over their heads. The sound of the helicopters moves away and the cry of the crows replaces it. One of the teachers, whom we’ll the second teacher, sticks his head out from the blackboard shelter and mimics the cry of the crows. The crows calm down and go away. The teacher stands up and camouflage their blackboards with mud. They continue their trail. After a while, the first and second teachers take another route and after they go a little farther, they too separate as the first teacher heads towards the villages while the second one aims at the heights hoping to find people among the shepherds who’d want to learn and would be willing to give the teacher a few loaves of bread to eat, in return of the lessons they receive.
Village road, an hour later:
The first teacher goes on to encounter an old man idling. The teacher asks him if he’d like to learn something. The old man answers by handing him a letter and asking him to read it to him. The letter is in Arabic and the Kurd teacher can’t read it, but the old man insists to know what the letter says. He tells the teacher that his son in a prisoner of war in Iraq and begs him to let him know of how his son is doing. The first teacher is finally forced to read the letter from his own imagination to give hope to the old man.
The villages, daytime:
The first teacher walks through the streets of the villages, singing and inviting the villagers, whom he hears but doesn’t see, to come take part in his class, but hears no response to his bid.
Mountain byway, (to Iran), daytime:
On his way, the second teacher sees teenage smugglers moving in a group. Asking around, he finds out that they go to Iraq everyday to bring smuggled goods back with them and thus live on the small profit they make this way. The second teacher asks them if they’d like to take part in his class, and they decline and prefer to be on the move. The second teacher suggests teaching them while walking with them. The teenagers refuse his offer and move on, but with the road being narrow, they have no alternative but to follow the teacher’s steps.
Mountain byway, (to Iraq), daytime:
Frustrated, the first teacher meets a group of old men who actually look more tired than he does. Each of them is carrying a package, and some are so old that they support themselves with the help of others. There is only one woman in this group, and she looks agitated and upset. The first teacher tries to persuade the group to let him teach them and asks in return to be fed by them, but the old men say they can’t feed themselves, much less someone else. In a corner, the teacher sees a sick old man, groaning of the pain his urinary bladder is causing him, preventing him from urinating. The first teacher offers to help him in any way he can, provided he is fed, and the old man says, “Tell me what I should do so I can urinate.” The other old men ask the teacher if he knows the way to the border, and offer to feed him if he takes them there. The first teacher accepts and joins the group. A minute later, the blackboard on the teacher’s back changes to a stretcher to carry the sick old man, with the first teacher one of the men supporting it. Meanwhile, the teacher is curious about the disturbed woman and asks around about her. He is told that the woman has been widowed and the child with her is from her late husband. He is suggested to marry her, if he really thinks himself so noble. They say that the blackboard he carries on his back is enough of a gift to offer to his bride.
Someone in the group helps the first teacher and the woman with their vows, and in its most primal from, pronounces them man and wife. The blackboard acts to separate the bridal chamber while the old man is helping her kid urinate.
The summit, same time:
The teenage smugglers learn on their bags and rest. The second teacher has found someone among them who is interested in learning how to write his own name, Ribvar.
A lake in a deep valley, same time:
The woman is busy washing her young child’s clothing. The old man groans of agony and prays to God to take his life and spare him the pain. The first teacher arranges his blackboard and the bigger rocks in the form of a chamber. The old man who urinted the couple tricks the kid into following him, leaving the couple with a chance to enjoy their privacy.
The first teacher and the woman are now alone in their chamber. The teacher looks at his wife for a while, he then takes a piece of chalk and in Kurdish, writes “I love you” on the blackboard. To teach this phrase to his wife, he spells the words for her.
The old men who initially started a game with walnuts to amuse the child are now absorbed in the game and forget all about the kid. The kid goes to the chamber and the mother uses the kid as an excuse to run out of the chamber. This shows that the woman doesn’t want her husband.
Some of the old men try to help the old man who was in pain by throwing him into the cold water of the river and splashing water on him. The old man trembles from the cold, but still cannot urinate. A fire is lit up and the old men stand around it to get warm. One old man suggests: “Even the devil would have urinated in that cold water. This man must be more evil than the devil himself.”
The stone summit, the byways, a little later:
The second teacher is training Ribvar on how to write his name. The teenager who is the leader of the group shows up and yells, “the soldiers are coming.” Everyone runs, and the teacher runs along. As the teenagers get far enough to feel safe again, the second teacher who has a blackboard on his back spells Ribvar’s name for him again. Ribvar, who is bending because of the load he carries, heads towards the blackboard on the second teacher’s back and learn to spell his name. Suddenly, a cry is heard as a teenager falls in the canyon. Minutes later, the second teacher’s blackboard is broken with the teenagers’ axes; to be used in a cast on the teenager’s broken leg. The teenagers, still scared, separate into groups to meet each other at a farther point in their path.
The fogged summit, same time:
The old men keep on going. They’re exhausted. The first teacher walks ahead of them with the blackboard on his back. The woman follows him, and the kid walks along while holding the mother’s sleeve. At a point in their path, the kid sees a rabbit running by, goes after it, and gets lost. The woman changes direction to follow her child and the teacher goes after her. The old men are now far away, and the first teacher, the woman, and the child are left by themselves. The teacher lays his blackboard on the ground and once again starts teaching the phrase “I love you”. The woman is sitting on the ground, feeding her child, and ignoring him. The lack of attention from the woman makes the teacher more and more angry; continuously grades her and gives her lower grades each time, as though intending to fail her. He ends up leaving her and walking away, but then he hears the voice of the woman who is running after him; he stops, and turns back. After getting close enough, the woman stretches her arms towards his neck only to take her child’s pants, which she had hanged on the blackboard to dry. She then hung back to the direction she came from.
The cattle route, same time:
The second teacher goes on to teach. Suddenly Ribvar and three others accompanying him throw themselves on the ground and come back crawling. After a moment, we find out that the teenagers are hiding in-between the passing cattle to escape the eyes of the guards on the border. The second teacher, with a blackboard on his back, looks like a shepherd in the herd. The teacher and the sheep pass the guards on the border. An hour later, it is time for the young girls to milk the herd. The thirsty teacher puts his hand in the way of the milk pouring into the bucket and drinks some milk from the sheep. The blackboard is leaning against the back of the second teacher and Ribvar is practicing to write his name. When he finally succeeds in writing the word “Ribvar” like the teacher had on the same blackboard, he cries of happiness “I did it, I did it, I actually wrote my name!” and is instantly killed with a bullet that roars into the air. The other teenagers run toward the mountains, but with the sound of each bullet, we see one of them fall and roll on the ground in the middle of the fleeing sheep.
A mountain close to the Iraqi Kurdistan border, same time:
The old men, scared by the sound of shooting, run and hide behind the nearest rocks. The woman who fears chemical bombing hides under the first teacher’s blackboard and pours gravel in the front of the blackboard to stop chemical bombs, while hugging her young child very hard. The old man, who tried everything but couldn’t urinate, sits in some corner and urinates in his pants. Scared, he too takes refuge under the blackboard. A moment later, they all crawl away and the woman drags her child under her while howling of fear of the chemical bombardment that would follow. The first teacher, who is holding the blackboard as a shield on top of the woman and her child’s head, tries to calm her down, hoping to reduce her fear.
The border, the last hours of day:
The group of old men with the first teacher, the woman, the child, and the old man, who couldn’t urinate, reach the border. The wind is blowing and there is fog around them. The first teacher shouts, “we’re there”. This is your home. At first, no one believes him, but they finally accept and fall down to the ground to pray God. To pay respect, they take their shoes off before crossing the borderline.
At the last moment, the man who had married the teacher and the woman comes to the teacher and convinces him to divorce her. He explains that the woman’s heart is with her dead husband, so the first teacher accepts and their divorce is pronounced. The blackboard that had been offered as a gift is put on the woman’s back while she walks away.
As the woman crosses the fogged border, one can see the words “I love you”, Which the woman never seemed to learn, on the blackboard on her back.
Mohsen Makhmalbaf
(1999)
A dirt road in the heart of the mountains, day time:
Men with Kurdish costumes carrying blackboards on their backs appear from the turns and twists of the mountain road ahead. From the group, we hear a man who we’ll call “the first teacher” complaining to another teacher. He regrets becoming a teacher and having to spend the rest of his life wandering in vain, searching for students unwilling to study. A vague sound roars through the mountains. The teachers are worried. The sound is getting closer and closer. The teachers run and hide under the blackboards not to be seen by the helicopters passing over their heads. The sound of the helicopters moves away and the cry of the crows replaces it. One of the teachers, whom we’ll the second teacher, sticks his head out from the blackboard shelter and mimics the cry of the crows. The crows calm down and go away. The teacher stands up and camouflage their blackboards with mud. They continue their trail. After a while, the first and second teachers take another route and after they go a little farther, they too separate as the first teacher heads towards the villages while the second one aims at the heights hoping to find people among the shepherds who’d want to learn and would be willing to give the teacher a few loaves of bread to eat, in return of the lessons they receive.
Village road, an hour later:
The first teacher goes on to encounter an old man idling. The teacher asks him if he’d like to learn something. The old man answers by handing him a letter and asking him to read it to him. The letter is in Arabic and the Kurd teacher can’t read it, but the old man insists to know what the letter says. He tells the teacher that his son in a prisoner of war in Iraq and begs him to let him know of how his son is doing. The first teacher is finally forced to read the letter from his own imagination to give hope to the old man.
The villages, daytime:
The first teacher walks through the streets of the villages, singing and inviting the villagers, whom he hears but doesn’t see, to come take part in his class, but hears no response to his bid.
Mountain byway, (to Iran), daytime:
On his way, the second teacher sees teenage smugglers moving in a group. Asking around, he finds out that they go to Iraq everyday to bring smuggled goods back with them and thus live on the small profit they make this way. The second teacher asks them if they’d like to take part in his class, and they decline and prefer to be on the move. The second teacher suggests teaching them while walking with them. The teenagers refuse his offer and move on, but with the road being narrow, they have no alternative but to follow the teacher’s steps.
Mountain byway, (to Iraq), daytime:
Frustrated, the first teacher meets a group of old men who actually look more tired than he does. Each of them is carrying a package, and some are so old that they support themselves with the help of others. There is only one woman in this group, and she looks agitated and upset. The first teacher tries to persuade the group to let him teach them and asks in return to be fed by them, but the old men say they can’t feed themselves, much less someone else. In a corner, the teacher sees a sick old man, groaning of the pain his urinary bladder is causing him, preventing him from urinating. The first teacher offers to help him in any way he can, provided he is fed, and the old man says, “Tell me what I should do so I can urinate.” The other old men ask the teacher if he knows the way to the border, and offer to feed him if he takes them there. The first teacher accepts and joins the group. A minute later, the blackboard on the teacher’s back changes to a stretcher to carry the sick old man, with the first teacher one of the men supporting it. Meanwhile, the teacher is curious about the disturbed woman and asks around about her. He is told that the woman has been widowed and the child with her is from her late husband. He is suggested to marry her, if he really thinks himself so noble. They say that the blackboard he carries on his back is enough of a gift to offer to his bride.
Someone in the group helps the first teacher and the woman with their vows, and in its most primal from, pronounces them man and wife. The blackboard acts to separate the bridal chamber while the old man is helping her kid urinate.
The summit, same time:
The teenage smugglers learn on their bags and rest. The second teacher has found someone among them who is interested in learning how to write his own name, Ribvar.
A lake in a deep valley, same time:
The woman is busy washing her young child’s clothing. The old man groans of agony and prays to God to take his life and spare him the pain. The first teacher arranges his blackboard and the bigger rocks in the form of a chamber. The old man who urinted the couple tricks the kid into following him, leaving the couple with a chance to enjoy their privacy.
The first teacher and the woman are now alone in their chamber. The teacher looks at his wife for a while, he then takes a piece of chalk and in Kurdish, writes “I love you” on the blackboard. To teach this phrase to his wife, he spells the words for her.
The old men who initially started a game with walnuts to amuse the child are now absorbed in the game and forget all about the kid. The kid goes to the chamber and the mother uses the kid as an excuse to run out of the chamber. This shows that the woman doesn’t want her husband.
Some of the old men try to help the old man who was in pain by throwing him into the cold water of the river and splashing water on him. The old man trembles from the cold, but still cannot urinate. A fire is lit up and the old men stand around it to get warm. One old man suggests: “Even the devil would have urinated in that cold water. This man must be more evil than the devil himself.”
The stone summit, the byways, a little later:
The second teacher is training Ribvar on how to write his name. The teenager who is the leader of the group shows up and yells, “the soldiers are coming.” Everyone runs, and the teacher runs along. As the teenagers get far enough to feel safe again, the second teacher who has a blackboard on his back spells Ribvar’s name for him again. Ribvar, who is bending because of the load he carries, heads towards the blackboard on the second teacher’s back and learn to spell his name. Suddenly, a cry is heard as a teenager falls in the canyon. Minutes later, the second teacher’s blackboard is broken with the teenagers’ axes; to be used in a cast on the teenager’s broken leg. The teenagers, still scared, separate into groups to meet each other at a farther point in their path.
The fogged summit, same time:
The old men keep on going. They’re exhausted. The first teacher walks ahead of them with the blackboard on his back. The woman follows him, and the kid walks along while holding the mother’s sleeve. At a point in their path, the kid sees a rabbit running by, goes after it, and gets lost. The woman changes direction to follow her child and the teacher goes after her. The old men are now far away, and the first teacher, the woman, and the child are left by themselves. The teacher lays his blackboard on the ground and once again starts teaching the phrase “I love you”. The woman is sitting on the ground, feeding her child, and ignoring him. The lack of attention from the woman makes the teacher more and more angry; continuously grades her and gives her lower grades each time, as though intending to fail her. He ends up leaving her and walking away, but then he hears the voice of the woman who is running after him; he stops, and turns back. After getting close enough, the woman stretches her arms towards his neck only to take her child’s pants, which she had hanged on the blackboard to dry. She then hung back to the direction she came from.
The cattle route, same time:
The second teacher goes on to teach. Suddenly Ribvar and three others accompanying him throw themselves on the ground and come back crawling. After a moment, we find out that the teenagers are hiding in-between the passing cattle to escape the eyes of the guards on the border. The second teacher, with a blackboard on his back, looks like a shepherd in the herd. The teacher and the sheep pass the guards on the border. An hour later, it is time for the young girls to milk the herd. The thirsty teacher puts his hand in the way of the milk pouring into the bucket and drinks some milk from the sheep. The blackboard is leaning against the back of the second teacher and Ribvar is practicing to write his name. When he finally succeeds in writing the word “Ribvar” like the teacher had on the same blackboard, he cries of happiness “I did it, I did it, I actually wrote my name!” and is instantly killed with a bullet that roars into the air. The other teenagers run toward the mountains, but with the sound of each bullet, we see one of them fall and roll on the ground in the middle of the fleeing sheep.
A mountain close to the Iraqi Kurdistan border, same time:
The old men, scared by the sound of shooting, run and hide behind the nearest rocks. The woman who fears chemical bombing hides under the first teacher’s blackboard and pours gravel in the front of the blackboard to stop chemical bombs, while hugging her young child very hard. The old man, who tried everything but couldn’t urinate, sits in some corner and urinates in his pants. Scared, he too takes refuge under the blackboard. A moment later, they all crawl away and the woman drags her child under her while howling of fear of the chemical bombardment that would follow. The first teacher, who is holding the blackboard as a shield on top of the woman and her child’s head, tries to calm her down, hoping to reduce her fear.
The border, the last hours of day:
The group of old men with the first teacher, the woman, the child, and the old man, who couldn’t urinate, reach the border. The wind is blowing and there is fog around them. The first teacher shouts, “we’re there”. This is your home. At first, no one believes him, but they finally accept and fall down to the ground to pray God. To pay respect, they take their shoes off before crossing the borderline.
At the last moment, the man who had married the teacher and the woman comes to the teacher and convinces him to divorce her. He explains that the woman’s heart is with her dead husband, so the first teacher accepts and their divorce is pronounced. The blackboard that had been offered as a gift is put on the woman’s back while she walks away.
As the woman crosses the fogged border, one can see the words “I love you”, Which the woman never seemed to learn, on the blackboard on her back.
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