Blackboards

Overview

Itinerant Kurdish teachers, carrying blackboards on their backs, look for students in the hills and villages of Iran, near the Iraqi border during the Iran-Iraq war. Said falls in with a group of old men looking for their bombed-out village; he offers to guide them, and takes as his wife Halaleh, the clan's lone woman, a widow with a young son. Reeboir attaches himself to a dozen pre-teen boys weighed down by contraband they carry across the border; they're mules, always on the move. Said and Reeboir try to teach as their potential students keep walking. Danger is close; armed soldiers patrol the skies, the roads, and the border. Is there a role for a teacher? Is there hope?

Cast

N/A

Said Mohamadi

Said

Behnaz Jafari

Halaleh

Bahman Ghobadi

Rebwar

N/A

Mohamad Karim Rahmati

Father

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Rafat Moradi

Ribwar

N/A

Mayas Rostami

Young boy storyteller

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Saman Akbari

Group leader

Ahmad Bahrami

Marriage registrar

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Karim Moradi

Old man

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Hassan Mohamadi

Child

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Rasool Mohamadi

The boy porter

N/A

Somaye Veisee

Little girl