Released in 2000, Blackboards was the second film by Samira Makhmalbaf, daughter of acclaimed Iranian auteur Mohsen Makhmalbaf and a precocious director in her own right. As the film opens, a group of itinerant teachers lug blackboards into the mountains of Iranian Kurdistan, seeking to bring education to this illiterate, impoverished region in exchange for some meagre income.

Two of the teachers quickly branch off from the group, and the film follows their adventures. Saïd (Saïd Mohamadi) falls in with a group of nomads trying to get back to their native land across the border in Ira... read the rest.