And How Miserable Is the Home of Evil & Talking with Rivers

Programme

• And How Miserable Is the Home of Evil

  The video is authentic, and perhaps the audio too, but the combination of the two is fictional—for now, at least. We see the Iranian Ayatollah Ali Khamenei taking refuge in a mosque, surrounded by his followers. Meanwhile, we hear the protests outside becoming increasingly furious and violent. This is a documentary about the near future of Iran, maker Saleh Kashefi hopes.
  
  The Iranian filmmaker, who has now fled to Switzerland, delved into the archives of Khamenei's website, which contain endless videos of sermons and speeches that Iran’s supreme leader has given over the years. Kashefi places the images in a new context; through his careful selection and editing, he shows Khamenei not as the strong leader he likes to present himself as, but as a desperate dictator in his vulnerable final moments.

• Talking with Rivers

  The neighbouring nations of Afghanistan and Iran used to belong together: they were both parts of the historical region of Khorasan until 1747, when they separated. Talking with Rivers is a conversation between these two countries, through the voices of Iranian director Mohsen Makhmalbaf, who has made ten films in and about Afghanistan, and of Afghan actor Jawanmard Paiez. Their dialogue explores the violent history of the two countries—all those invasions by foreign powers, all those refugees, all that repression by mullahs or the Taliban. Why is it, exactly, that they were unable to come together? “Oh brother, we were separated and you were destroyed,” they both say.
  
  Their exchange is intercut with marvellously apt clips from films by Makhmalbaf himself (including Kandahar and The Cyclist) and by his daughters Samira and Hana (At 5 in the Afternoon and Buddha Collapsed Out of Shame). With this, Talking with Rivers becomes an impressive journey through the filmography of the Makhmalbafs, as well as a chronicle of a tormented region.