You don’t have to be old to become a Celeb.!
Each and every one of us has
some fears inside. Some fears are caused internally and some by external forces
beyond our control. Just sit there and imagine some of the fears surrounding you
each day unconsciously: fear of losing your job, fear of losing your life
partner, fear of having an accident, etc. You are surrounded by all these and
even many more causes for fear. But how many times have any of such fears
hindered you from making a simple decision?
In the movie”
Joy of madness” we face four people whose lives and
decisions are crippled by fear. Every one of them finds a reason to be afraid
and allows this fear to overcome his life.
“Samira Makhmalbaf”, the accredited young Iranian
director, travels to Kabul to find some cast for shooting her movie. Samira
raised in the ideology that life is nothing but the poetic words flowing through
the hands of the ordinary people, seeks her cast among the ordinary people of
Kabul.
But
in Kabul, finding the cast of the film among ordinary people is Not an
easy job. No one accepts to act in her film” 5
in the afternoon”. Everyone is afraid of others. What is interesting is
that Samira is not alone in her quest for finding the cast, Hana, her 14 year
old sister carrying her digital camera accompanies her. Hana’s camera is
capturing the reactions of people to the casting proposal of her sister. Being a
14 year old, no body considers her serious which becomes an added plus. That is
how Hana’s film: “The
Joy of Madness” becomes a true mirror of today Afghan people
fears.
Hana says:” If cinema is like
a mirror for society to see and correct itself, my film is the mirror in front
of a society which proves to be made of people afraid of one another and of
cinema. Behind this fear there are thousands of pains and secrets.”
Hana
in her own words explains the characters of her film:” All my characters are
cowardly people. For example the
coward mullah is afraid that people would not look up to him and he would loose
his position and prestige. The
woman who intends to get married is afraid she would loose her opportunity for
marriage if she acted in the film. The
crazy family find cinema as the murderer of their child and “Agheleh”
who turned to be Samira’s lead actress is afraid of everything, the return of
Taliban and people’s gossip behind an actress.”
May be Hana never knew that her
digital camera film will turn into a 35mm film that will make her one of the
youngest celebrities in the world. “Joy of Madness” debuted at
the 60th Venice film festival.
Hana the youngest director in
the cinema history is so young that under Italian law, as a minor was not
allowed to see the movie she had directed!* Fortunately the Festival organizers
got a last minute permission to let Hana hit the red carpet of the festival.
Hana has had a rather
extraordinary education. Hana left school at the age of 8 after her second grade
just to join her father art school. Her father, “Mohsen
Makhmalbaf”, an internationally infamous director, held some art/film
making classes at home. Hana joined these classes. About these classes Hana
says:” I attended 30 classes held in our
house. I had an easier time understanding some of the subjects because my father
simplified them but I got a feel of those that were harder to grasp.
We learned some courses for better living like swimming,
bicycling, skating, cooking, urban studies and driving and these were all
practical. We studied some subjects to learn to be humans like Gnostics and
psychology but those too at the end would become practical. Other classes such
as editing, photography, coaching actors, script and story writing were
practical.”
Hana says that most of her friends were interested to
study at such a school but could not continue it for long. This school had one
principle: concentration. It
is not important what your interest is or what you wish to acquire but you have
to pursue that one particular interest for 8 hours a day for at least one month.
This exceptionally talented girl, Hana follows his
dad’s ideology that cinema does not only belong to old men and women and
adolescents can make their own films too especially with digital cameras that
have simplified technical problems. So, open your eyes to grasp the opportunity!
May be the next lucky person to hit a red carpet is no one but YOU!
Kathy
Hadizadeh
Los
Angeles
Sep.9th 2003
* “ The Joy of Madness” was
not rated at the time of the festival. Under Italian law a minor cannot see
movies that have no rating.