Blackboards
As we know, blackboards are where teachers write lessons and students pay attention. This simple technology facilitates the giving and receiving of knowledge. The blackboard cannot be separated from the teacher. It is their first and last sign, like the flag in a scene of defeat.
Goenawan Mohamad
June 7, 2021
IN the dry, barren expanse of hills of Kurdistan, six men approach, walking from a distance. Each carries a blackboard perched on his back, like stiff black wings.
They are teachers. Thin, lined, dusty, they roam the border areas emptied and destroyed during the Iran-Iraq war. They are looking for students.
Scenes like this, a surrealist moment in Samira Makhmalbaf’s film Takhté siah (Blackboards) take us to a story about hist
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