afghanistan

Director Atom Egoyan opened the 5th Annual Toronto Human Rights Watch Film Festival, introducing Hana Makhlmalbaf’s Buddha Collapsed Out Of Shame and talking of his own experience screening Ararat, which focused on the 1915 Armenian genocide in Turkey, at the same theatre some six years ago.

Egoyan has been a member of the Toronto Committee of Human Rights Watch for several years. He is the latest recipient of the Dan David Prize for “creative rendering of the past” in literature, theatre or film, joining playwright Tom Stoppard and novelist Amos Oz in sharing the $1 million prize.

Egoyan spoke to the artistic merits of Buddha Collapsed Out of Shame and the legacy passed down to the director from her father – Mohsen Makhmalbaf. A major figure in Iranian cinema, Mohsen established the Makhmalbaf Film House in which he taught film to a select group of pupils including his own three children. Makhmalbaf traveled secretly to Afghanistan during the Taliban rule and was one of the first filmmakers to shoot in the country after the group’s fall. He also founded a non-governmental organization for enabling Afghan children to go to school in Iran.

His elder daughter Samira directed a movie while living in Kabul called At Five in the Afternoon. Her latest film, Two-Legged Horse, from a script by her father, was also shot in Afghanistan. Hana’s directorial debut was at age 14 when she made a behind-the-scenes documentary of her sister Samira’s film, called Joy of Madness.

The Toronto Human Rights Watch Film Festival continues tomorrow night with El Ejido, The Law of Profit. Consuelo Rubio, Community Legal Worker for the Center for Spanish Speaking People, will introduce the film. Screening time is 7:30 PM at Jackman Hall, Art Gallery of Ontario.