The young film maker


Samira Makhmalbaf is the director of “The Apple”, an extraordinary, award-winning film about two 12-year-old Iranian sisters kept prisoner by their parents since birth. What is also extraordinary is that Samira is just 18 years old. “There are so many films about teenagers,” says Samira. “But who makes them? Adults!” But the suspicion among many critics is that Samira’s father –also a film-maker– has done most of the work credited to his daughter in “The Apple”. Samira is irritated by these other adults, the critics: “I prefer children to adults,” she says. “They are more alive. Not like adults, always trying to have a theory about everything.”

She doesn’t include her father in this unhappy band –he “doesn’t judge anyone”– and she insists that the controversy has not created any tension between father and daughter. “If they think this film is worthy of my father, it must be very good.” The parents in her film are very different from Samira’s own. The ones in the film were a brutal couple who kept their two girls in constant terror and would not let them go into the outside world, especially their mother, a blind woman, full of anger, who usually called her daughters “little bitches”.

Samira’s own mother died when Samira was 12, the result of a “domestic incident”. She was burnt to death. What was her mother like? Samira’s voice is very soft. “She was really patient; she helped my father not to think about the problems of our house. She did everything.” Samira seems unaware how old-fashioned this sounds. “She also helped my father with his films. She was his first audience. She could be the same as a mirror in front of my father.” Samira says that her mother’s death changed her. “When you have a mother, you are a child all the time. She solves your problems. After my mother died, I had to grow up.” Although only 18, the success of her first film must make Samira feel definitively grown-up.

PART ONE: READING COMPREHENSION

1. Answer the following questions according to the information in the text.

a) What were the critics’ main objections to “The Apple”?

b) What is Samira’s opinion about adults?

c) How would you describe Samira’s relationship with her parents?

 

  PART TWO: WRITING
Choose ONE. Write about either 1 or 2.

Option A:Samira keeps a personal diary. Her film has been in the cinemas for three months and it is a popular success in spite of some criticism. Write down a diary entry concerning her recent experiences.

Option B: You have a chance to meet Samira Makhmalbaf. Using information from the text and your own imagination, write an interview with her: “A conversation with a young film-maker”.


3. Vocabulary

Explain next words in English, write the phonetics and also an example: award, suspicion, blind, worthy,chance, unaware, grown-up.