DC's

I slept and my souls went away.
—Things Seen by the Shaman Karawe (Chukchi)

In the magical universe there are no coincidences and there are no accidents.
—William S. Burroughs

A bo phela a morapeli, Malaola
tse phelang le tse shoeleng.

He will live who knows how to pray.
Divining the things alive & dead.
— The Praises of the Falls (Basuto)

Dreams are subterranean soul stirrings. Dispatches from the spirit-world. To not only heed but map & catalogue them has been seen by deep cultures everywhere as good spiritual housekeeping. This can take many forms.

Among the Bidayuh of Sarawak (Malaysia) the shaman undergoes trance & records what he sees. He is a willful dream-traveler whose experiences both down below & up above feed the archive of song & lore that constitutes the wealth of the community.

The divination traditions of the Basuto & Yoruba, like the more widely known Chinese I Ching, draw from a vast poetic storehouse of recorded visions, dreams & memories—some mythic, some obscure, but all fundamentally weird in the old English sense of the word wyrd, which smacks of the Fates & refers to “the power to control destiny”. That’s where the healing comes in. Through the chance-or-fate operation of casting nuts or bones a pattern emerges, which yields verses—verses which take place in a magical universe where men, gods & spirits freely mingle, where ritual acts alter the fabric of reality, where sacred precedent is set. No wonder Australian Aborigines call this realm The Dreaming. Western scholars, hung up on the incompatible notion of linear time, take this to be a mythic past. Which The Dreaming includes, not as a remote Back Then, but as one of many strands woven into a cyclic Always, the sacred pulse of the-way-things-are. Here psychic forces act & dance out in the open. Basuto & Yoruba diviners are not fortune tellers but custodians of the preserved lore of The Dreaming. To go in for a divination session is to get an X-ray of the soul—individual & collective. And the medicine is poetry.

The poems & commentaries here are from Technicians of the Sacred by Jerome Rothenberg, accompanied by some culturally related sights & sounds, plus at the end two totally unrelated songs each—modern bedfellows placed here in the spirit of correspondence across ages & cultures.

For an opening act we have a poem of my own, which gives this piece its title, & then Bruce Conner & Patrick Gleeson invite you to “Take the 5:10 to Dreamland”.

Carsten Czarnecki
carstenczarnecki.blogspot.com
Benajarafe, Malaga, Spain
2026

 

Dreamkeeping
by Carsten Czarnecki

 

to give dreams their due
lest they come back as witches

a gang of wild boars
in a mad flight
leaping
across rooftops
as seen from below

a seaport in the old style
looping roads
that meet themselves
& never any lack of moonlight
we call it Killer’s Cove
out on the pier a lone cantina
long burnt-out but standing
here tired killers turn contemplative
who have their mansions in the hills
but do their drinking down below
talking shop in tired voices
tired killers three drinks shy of Tula
& every night quiet as expected death…
blowing smoke into our mezcals
some god is blowing fog across the sea
sunset calms the twitching hand
shopkeeper’s turned curandero
peddles shrunken heads now with a smile
he knows what god has done the shrinking
but that knowledge costs you extra

the climate lays you out
& still I stiffen
bent back held up on a chain of iron vertebrae
(wait, that one’s no dream)

tough guy idling to the tune of tug boats
what is it—just a lapse of attention
the result: my cock betrays me
impregnated the town whore
was made king
& quickly learned
that kingship is to be avoided
like winter & like wine

*****

Take the 5:10 to Dreamland (1976)
by Bruce Conner

Watch the film here

Sometimes it seems a mystery to me what images should be in a film. I collect all kinds, and then I can’t understand why I thought I would want to use them. Sometimes I’ll be editing, and I’ll throw away a strip of film only to find—if I can retrieve it from the wastebasket—that it’s the image that makes the whole movie work. Sometimes one image is required to pull everything together; sometimes I can’t finish a film because I don’t have that one missing key.
–I Don’t Go To The Movies Anymore: An Interview with Bruce Conner

But strangely, every time Bruce and I revisited the score in an attempt to restore it to something closer to the original—which we did every few years as new technology emerged—we came away frustrated. What had happened was that the film itself, in an act of agency, had claimed the sound, damaged or not, and this was now “the original soundtrack.” What you’re seeing and hearing is what was intended, although by whom I cannot say.
–The Soundtrack of Take the 5:10 to Dreamland by Patrick Gleeson

*****

Bidayuh
(modern-day Sarawak, Malaysia)

Tuku’ Kame’ – Rejang Beuh

 

A List of Bad Dreams Chanted as a Cause & Cure for Missing Souls

To dream that one’s hair is falling out.
To dream that all one’s teeth are falling out.
To dream that one is being saved.
To dream that one is being nursed.
To dream that one is very dirty.
To dream that one is dissolving.
To dream that one is in mourning, as shown by the hair.
To dream that one is being beaten, beaten on the neck, up to the ears,
—–and all about the face.

To dream that she is saying the ngiriyn prayer.
To dream that she is saying the ngirogin prayer.
To dream that she is committing adultery.
To dream that she is being saved.
To dream that she is in the red-hat festival.
To dream that she is putting a red cloth over her shoulders.
To dream that she is wearing, as well as the red cloth, a red hat upon her head.
To dream that she is sitting on the swinging plank.
To dream that she is nursing the young soul.
To dream that she is lying among pieces of ranehary wood.
To dream that she is quarreling.
To dream that she is hitting someone.
To dream that she is involved in a court case.
To dream that she is paying kati banda fines.
To dream that she is answering a man’s proposal of marriage.
To dream that she is replying and going in among things that had been
—–ordered which have just arrived.

To dream that she is separated from her husband.
To dream that she is finished with her husband.
To dream that she is dividing her property.
To dream that she is packing her good belongings.
To dream that she is going away.
To dream that she is resting in the bachelors’ quarters, resting at the top
—–of the bachelors’ quarters.
To dream that she is looking at the stars.
To dream that she is looking at the moon—
looking at the first day of the new moon,
looking at the first day of the dying moon,
looking at the smoky stars,
looking at the moon being swallowed by clouds.

To dream of looking at a beehive.
To dream of being swallowed by flames of fire.
To dream of resting in the old jungle.
To dream of resting on the cemetery grounds.
To dream of being hit by tewai bamboo.
To dream of resting at the foot of the parai palm.
To dream of resting at the pool of paleness.
To dream of resting at the house of the grandmother of Bubot.
To dream of resting at the house of the grandmother of Tauh.
To dream of resting at the house of Kitapung Bannau.
To dream of resting at the large stretch of low-lying land.
To dream of resting at the grove of bemban palms.
To dream of resting at the noisy mountain.
To dream of resting among falling boulders.
To dream of resting among rolling logs.

To dream of resting among rolling stones.
To dream of resting while in a deep hole.
To dream of resting on the slope of a mountain.
To dream of resting in an old jungle.
To dream of resting in a very deep old jungle.

To dream of resting with a coil of young vines.
Resting while sick and suffocating.
To dream of resting in someone’s blacksmith shed.
To dream of resting among beating drums,
the demon’s drum which is flat.
To dream of resting in the dried leaves.
To dream of resting inside the small porcupine hole.
To dream of resting along the wild boar track.
To dream of resting in the deer’s pool.
Of resting on top of an anthill,
resting on top of a hill of white ants.
To dream of resting on a rotten log.
To dream of being chased by a snake.
To dream of being bayed at by a wolf.
To dream of being barked at by the dogs of demons.
To dream of resting inside a hunting shed.
To dream of sleeping at the foot of a betel-nut tree.

Dying traditions in Malaysian Borneo

Commentary

Part of a longer group of prayers used by the Bidayuh (Land Dayaks) of Sarawak, Malaysia, as a means for coming at the cause of illnesses brought on by soul-wandering. The chant accompanies the spirit-medium’s trance journey to the Underworld (Sebayan) & unfolds a catalogue of dream-names—as if to set down all those possibilities so that the real work can begin. A prototype in that sense of those deliberate dream-investigations that poets have pursued throughout the twentieth century & beyond.

Kruder & Dorfmeister and Rockers Hi-Fi – Going Under

Iggy Pop – The Dawn

*****

Basuto
(also known as Sotho/Basotho; modern-day Lesotho, South Africa, Botswana & Namibia)

Letsema Matsela and Basotho Dihoba – Lithoko

 

The Praises of the Falls

The Fall of The Little Creeper
—–is one called “rascal of the circle”
—–is a calf that doesn’t frolic, doesn’t come out of the village
—–then it frolics & goes back to its post

The Swimming of the Sunbird
—–Sunbird
—–secret & daring
—–when you take up a piece of straw
—–& say you imitate the hammerhead
—–though nobody can imitate the hammerhead
—–bird
—–of those who take new clothes
—–into deep waters
—–you are taking up pieces of straw
—–one by one
—–you build above pools
—–the little sunbird
—–mustn’t fall
—–that falls & goes phususu
—–in the pool
—–the patient man
—–is sitting on the drift
—–watching his sins pass by
—–& sees the river reed
—–mocking
—–the reed of the plain
—–it says:
—–when the grass is burning
—–the other one laughing also
—–saying:
—–when the river fills up

The Fall or Swimming of the Molele
—–of
—–mothers
—–of “give me some fat
—–to smear myself”
—–& fat to smear it on the road
—–to wait
—–a long time, not to
—–smear
—–if going to your husband
—–the smooth face of some monkey
—–& the space in front of him
—–those shining stones

The Swimming of the Red Sparrow
—–Red sparrow
—–never be a stranger
—–Stranger with stunted horns
—–& open guilt
—–This big turd was the stranger’s
—–Our headsman’s
—–turd
—–is such a
—–paltry thing

The Fall of Shaping the Hammer
—–some irons eating
—–some others
—–in the pincers
—–the positions of the bushmen’s huts
—–the bushman’s son
—–throwing
—–his arrow
—–is turning his back
—–& hits the eland in the udder
—–& these attract crowds
—–& are facing each other
—–one died at the drift
—–& one in the public places
—–take their hoes
—–& spades
—–let’s bury the witchdoctors

Of the Witchdoctor who Stopped the Pig
by His Cleverness
—–The sky is eating
—–is whispering
—–& eating
—–it roots in the straw
—–that the asparagus may stay with its garbage
—–sky
—–of distant lands
—–& of the hearth
—–now that the sky has stopped
—–raining
—–joy, joy
—–cries the pig
—–& is an animal
—–that grows fat
—–in fair weather

The Masibo Plant of the Power
—–Who doesn’t belong to the powerful
—–doesn’t grow from the power
—–This is the eland
—–& the small antelope
—–& the beast with a mane
—–This eland has bewitched
—–the eland of the shepherds
—–has arisen
—–has taken a new skin
—–Does the cow suck power from her calf?
—–The woman sucks power from her child

The Famous Masibo of the Swimming
—–Swim on the deep waters
—–lie upon them
—–who have no hippos & no little things
—–no beast of prey
—–biting
—–while it moves
—–& coiling itself in a corner
—–only the little hippos were swimming
—–the big ones
—–never swim here anymore
—–Why are the crocodiles
—–fighting in the water?
—–They are fighting for an old
—–crocodile
—–for many talks in the water
—–which says: I do not
—–bite, I only
—–play
—–will bite some other year
—–when the mimosa
—–& the willow tree
—–are growing

The Fame of the Lamp
—–O mother elephant
—–O mother elephant, I’m going blind
—–O mother elephant, I came here in secret
—–O mother elephant, their road was red
—–O mother elephant, there was blood & disorder
—–O mother elephant, who shakes her ear
—–O running elephant

The Fame of the Creepers
—–This is the big creeper
—–whose leaves have fallen
—–We warm ourselves
—–at its embers
—–We use it again
—–You are light
—–the lamp
—–which says:
—–make light for us
—–poor people

The Appearance of the Orchis of the Basutos
—–of the children of one clan
—–& of one who distributes
—–posterity
—–& of the white calabash
—–for remembrance
—–& the distribution of meat
—–of sheep & of kids
—–of the springboks
—–bringing hunger
—–to our bellies

The Lamp of the Seers
—–The angry man
—–fights with his mother-in-law
—–What was the good of those lamps?
—–Seeing wonders
—–every morning
—–your sins passed by
—–& you saw them
—–& saw the child of a cow
—–& of a human being
—–saw them, could tell them
—–apart
—–from the entrails

The Rise of the Cobra
—–He fell on the rock
—–& lay down
—–but he got up with his luggage
—–got up & shook off
—–the dust
—–White head?
—–Wear ornaments
—–White hair is a sign
—–something
—–the ancestors long for
—–fur from the head
—–of a hare
—–would make it
—–This is the last time

 

Song & dance by Basotho men of Lesotho

Commentary

The “praises”—first gathered by the Basuto writer Joas Mapetla—accompany the casting of oracle bones. Their purpose is
(1) To create, as with music, the conditions under which the bones are to be read, i.e., to provide that “coefficient of weirdness” Malinowski spoke of in which the words are music, act upon us before their sense is clear or against the possibility of any fixed meaning;
(2) As open-ended imagery that can then—almost “falsely”—be read as secret closed statements (the functional language of the oracle) in the participants’ search for clues to the unknown: the cause of disease & misfortune, etc.
Mapetla’s description of the bones & the procedures for casting is never clear. There are apparently four to twenty in a set, or litaola: four principal ones from the hoofs & horns of oxen, with lesser bones from ankles & hindlegs of anteaters, springbok, sheep, goats, monkeys, also occasional shells, twigs & stones. The four major bones are designated as greater & lesser male & greater & lesser female, & are read according to the sides on which they fall, direction of fall, positions relative to each other & to the minor bones, etc. The greater male & female have four sides called walking, standing, covering, & dying; the lesser male & female only walking & dying. Here is Mapetla’s description of the casting & “praising”:

When they are divining, the person who comes to ask for this service sweeps the ground where he has to throw them. Then the diviner loosens them from the string and gives them to the one who comes to consult.
This one tosses them and lets them fall on the ground.
Then the diviner examines them carefully in order to see the position they have taken.
When he sees that they have fallen in a certain position, he praises that fall for a good while.
Among the praises he mixes the affairs of people, of (various) things, of animals and sicknesses.
When he has finished the praises, he says to the person who came to consult him: Make me divine, my friend.
This one says: With these words, when you were making the praises, you pointed exactly to my case, and to my sickness.
And the diviner says: So it is, and this special position (of the bones) says the same. Then the diviner gives a charm to the consulting person, and receives a small fee from him (in exchange).

Addenda. (1) In the typical praise-poem the lines or praises are independent units that the poet brings together in a kind of collage. In the present instance, however, it is the fall of the bones that suggests what verses will be used & determines their order. Thus chance—to a greater or lesser degree—serves to program the divining praises much as dice-castings, tarot-readings, random digit tables, etc., take on a structuring & selecting function for some contemporary poets. A comparison with the chance-generated poetry & music of artists like Jackson Mac Low & John Cage would also be useful. (2) The name of a “fall” is generally that of the plant or other remedy to be used in that instance. Most African words that remain in the translations are likewise either plants or proper names—the meaning being fairly evident from the context. (3) The editor originally printed these with some reservations about their accuracy but in the hope that others would be encouraged to do more detailed work on a body of lore & poetry that, carefully assembled, might represent an African I Ching or Book of Changes. The work of Judith Gleason (from A Recitation of Ifa, following) virtually fulfills that hope.

Kid Congo & The Pink Monkey Birds – Conjure Man

Los Lobos – Kiko and the Lavender Moon

*****

Yoruba
(modern-day Nigeria, Benin & Togo, plus a vast diaspora)

Bata Igba Ensemble of Kétou, Benin – Repertoire for Oro and Ifa in Kétou

 

Ika Meji

Greetings for the sacrifice!
Now let us praise Ika Meji—
Can you see how Ifa came to this designation?
Up against the wall’s no place
—–to extend “long life!” to your elders;
Coming straight on,
—–gazing vaguely away
—–signifies a voracious visitor;
Might look as though I were up to no good,
—–followed by all of you; stay home,
—–said the snake to his hungry children

Made Ifa for Slim-pickings,
—–stubby little fellow who will survive
—–twenty thousand years in this world
—–if he sacrifice
—–ten pigeons, a scroungy cock, and ten bags of cowries.
He sacrificed, they made Ifa leaves for him,
—–and he did not die—
—–unlike the broom swept into a wisp,
—–he stayed together
We have sacrificed efficaciously.

Now let’s get on to row two:
King of the counting house
don’t count me
Turn around, misery,
count me out;
Snake-eyes,
if we’re being counted,
why’d ya call me?
Accountable for no-account?
No one’s seen me sin;
no wickedness on me.
Mother counts the baskets
Father counts the bins
One by one they counted us down,
but we fixed them.
Ifa, hearing this:
How is it all of you who live
in this rickety town
have icky names?
‘Cause hicks are what we called ourselves
till you hit the scene.
So that’s the reason, Ifa said,
All your lives you’ve been higgledy-piggledy, sick, sick, sick,
like housewives rushing before the storm
picking laundry off limbs.
Now go distribute money to snails,
for it’s their shells that spiral in—
like Mother Yemoja making medicine
with viper’s head. You dig?
She covered herself with prickly cloth;
and when this hedgehog edged over to sit
beside her victim, they said:
Go feed grass to that horse
standing by the corn bin.
When hedgehog hit
it was beancake-vendor
fell down dead.
Now snail turned gravedigger;
viper mourned the death
of beancake-vendor.

Creeping snail upon snail
adds insult to injury;
If witch’s snare can’t smell the entrance,
snail within will survive forever.
Will dog bite the heel of bush cow?
Never! We sneaked out of the way
to our rickety town
early in the morning.

Trading for years and nothing to show for it
—–called on
Axe strikes tree, definitively,
—–diviner of the house of Orunmila.
Secret arrived on foot,
—–blessed the rackety-packety inhabitants of Ika;
and when he had done,
we praised the diviner, saying:
Secret said I will have money,
—–and here is money.
Axe strikes tree, definitively,
—–as blade’s edge
—–is the tongue of secrets.
Diviner says I will have a wife—
—–Here she is.
Axe strikes tree
—–Power sits
—–in the mouth
—–of Ifa
Diviner says I will have offspring—
—–Here are children.
—–His tongue speaks
—–with authority:
Diviner says I will build me a house—
—–See, over there—
—–Secret’s spit is commanding.
Diviner says I will see good things—
—–There they are, everywhere, everything—
—–Energy fills the speech of diviner.
Then he started singing:
Spiky fingers —————-grip iniquity
Aka leaves ——————-bind hands of mine enemy
————Reverse wickedness!
Close their hands ———- globe, peel, pound, knead
Till there’s no remainder!
May they die young!
Spiny cloth ——————-slim leaves
bend and twist ————–till there be
no vise in ———————hostility
——————-So be it!
Greetings! May our sacrifice see us through this thicket.

 

The Ifa Divination System

Commentary

The name of both a god & a system of divination, Ifa uses a cord of eight split seeds or sixteen randomly thrown palm-nuts to summon the poetic voice of the Yoruba oracle. In Judith Gleason’s abbreviated description:

Each oracular configuration [or casting], known as Odu, is the product of sixteen times sixteen possibilities, which means that when the diviner (“father-of-secrets” or babalawo in Yoruba) casts for you, any one of 256 signs may appear. Further, each of these signs has many “roads” radiating out from it. To these roads are attached verses (ese), which are legion. When a certain Odu shows up on the board, the diviner will begin to recite some of these verses. When what he is saying seems to apply to your case, then a correct determination has been made. (Leaf & Bone)

The standard structure of the Ifa divination poems (“often highly lyrical & obscure in their references”) is to start with the citation of a previous, often mythic, casting, to name the diviner or diviners involved, then the name of the fictional client, the nature of his/her problem, the prescription suggested by the Odu, & the previous outcome. But further elements can enter through the intercalation of “songs and praises expressive of the ‘character’ of the Odu . . . as well as symbolic digressions on the meaning of the oracular system itself.” The result is an open-ended & complex series of language structures: a major example of the human capacity for intricate design & concept. It is also—as discussed in the previous commentary—a still existing form of poesis that functions on the level of such divinatory/synchronistic works as the Chinese I Ching.
In the Odu presented here, Orunmila is another name of Ifa as god, Yemoja that of an orisha, or deity. The name “ika meji” suggests “fingers” & “cruelty”—& a sense of danger & randomness (“existence as scattershot”) pervades the whole poem. Gleason writes further:

Ecologically, Ika Meji is the world of the forest floor envisaged as a thin substratum of poisonous invective and countervenom, a world of baneful creepers turned snares, of treacherous twigs and prickers, a place where everything must be constantly on its guard, for anything could suddenly reveal its treacherous nature. Hypocrisy and evil intention are revealed by the diviner’s proverbial names in the first verse of this recitation. The client in the first case is a poor, small creature, barely existing; in the second sequence the client is an entire town called Ika, which, for years “tied” by witchcraft, had been under the spell of its own name—a miserable place whose occupants, “trading for years with nothing to show for it,” have, justifiably, no sense of self-respect, no ability to get themselves together without Ifa’s help. Here is the twilight world of incantation, consciousness reduced to rigid reiteration of protective formulas—brilliantly conveyed in the Yoruba by an unremitting cacophony of “k” sounds: ka, aka, akika, akara, akeke, akaka, and so on, with tonal shifts left to point the way to meanings that are always verging on the meaningless. . . . The scene sounds like the song of Cock Robin turned tongue twister and illuminated by Beatrix Potter’s sinister wit. The avatars of this wicked odu are viper, hedgehog, and snail. (A Recitation of Ifa)

Howlin’ Wolf – Wang Dang Doodle

Miles Davis – Miles Runs the Voodoo Down

 

 

*

p.s. Hey. This weekend maestro Carsten leads us on a trip to Dreamland, and, if I’m any indication, you will come out the exit wiser. Please give it your local all, and thank you ever so much, generous guest-host. ** jay, Hey! I’m doing pretty alright, thanks. Marathon, like in running in shorts and a muscle T type marathon? Wow. I hope bystanders hold out beaucoup little Evian bottles or Gatorade or whatever fuels you. How was that? Joblessness sounds pretty scary, but I’m sure you’ll bolster him through it. Yeah, some segment of 4chan had nothing better to do than have paranoid theories about my humble blog for a short bit. Bon weekend, pal. ** _Black_Acrylic, Major luck on the potential windfall. I’m in a kind of same situation because the publisher of ‘The Sluts’ hasn’t been sending me my royalties for years, and now they’re finally getting pushed by my new agent to pony up. Wouldn’t be Stephen King-level numbers by any stretch, but it sure would help. ** Carsten, Hey. Thanks a billion for what’s up above! The 90s era Makhmalbaf films are by far his best, I think. And, well, I think most people think. The new Benning is magnificent. Man, you gotta love France. It was a very large theater, and it was completely packed, and everyone stayed for the whole film and applauded loudly after, and it was a very demanding structuralist film. I don’t think you’d see a Benning film get remotely that level of interest and respect even in LA and NYC. Paris tends to go pretty quiet culturally starting in mid-July and through August. Parisians like to split town for the late summer. Even quite a number of stores close for vacation. I don’t know at all really, but I think you would have a pretty difficult time finding a place in Paris for under 1000 a month, especially in heavy tourist time. That’s just a guess, though. There might be something out there. Enjoy the weekend you made! ** Tosh Berman, Hi Tosh! Listen, I’m in seemingly solid health and the news is frazzling and exhausting me like crazy. The helplessness re: the evil is really disturbing. Obviously I hope the next hospital stint is tolerable and massively successful. I will be keeping up via your generous substack verbiage and radiating love from your second home (in my mind at least, or at least a competitor for Tokyo). ** Steve, I totally agree with you about his Iran films versus the later ones. And thank you for the wisdom and background. I don’t know his wife’s films at all. Yeah, it’s supposedly an easy physical exam. I don’t have a doctor, and you have to do it way out in the suburbs somewhere, I don’t know why. This ‘renewal’ is more serious than the initial visa. I can get French social security/health care if I get it, and it starts a path towards longer term residency. Everyone, Please add three new reviews by Mr. Steve to your weekend input. Here he reviews Julia Ducournau’s ALPHA, and here he takes on Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s 1998 SERPENT’S PATH, released in U.S. theaters for the first time this week, and finally here he shares his thoughts on Raye’s album THIS MUSIC MAY CONTAIN HOPE. ** HaRpEr //, Yeah, very intriguing, especially because it’s such a strong, singular film. If you find out what her story is, I’d be curious to know. That whole era of Jost’s films is great. ‘Last Chance for a Slow Dance’ is excellent, and it might be easier to find in decent shape. I steer way from 4chan, but I did look in when that contingent was freaking on my blog. They decided because of the slave posts that I was running a sex/snuff trafficking ring or something. But then they realised I was just some weird fag novelist, and they moved on. I hope you can get out of that town before too, too long, pal. That’s disgusting, and knowing you’re just surrounded by dumbasses doesn’t help, I know. ** Okay. Let Carsten whisk you away until I see you next meaning on Monday.

 

‘Growing up in Iran, Mohsen Makhmalbaf was not allowed to go to the cinema because his grandmother believed that those who did would end up in hell. Over 20 films and 120 international awards later, he has become the leading voice of didactic cinema in Iran. His latest feature film The President recently screened at the 58th BFI London Film Festival.

‘Imprisoned by the State at the age of 17, Makhmalbaf was freed, five years later, in the wake of the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Most of Makhmalbaf’s fellow detainees were tortured and, when released, became the very epitome of the dictatorial figureheads they had once strived to depose. Makhmalbaf sought an answer to this proliferation of the Realpolitik and hoped to share his understanding with others.

‘When he finally went to the cinema after being freed by the Revolution, the experience had a life-changing effect on him. He discovered the ‘power of cinema’ as if he were a ‘blind person’ given the ability to see and immediately understood its value as a tool to change the cyclical violence fundamentally entrenched in culture from within.

‘The idea for The President came around eight years ago when Makhmalbaf was at the Palace of Amanullah Khan in Afghanistan, standing at the edge of a hilltop that looks out over Kabul. He pondered over the concept of a dictator, commanding the city’s lights be turned on and off just to entertain his grandson.

‘While the film’s script was initially due to be set in Afghanistan, Makhmalbaf was unable to pin down a producer at the time. But three years later, the harrowing consequences of the Arab Spring compelled him to revisit the script. “I cried a lot for the Syrian people,” he says. “Look at the last three years and how many people have been killed by the exact same concept and tragedy that you will see in The President,” he adds.

‘The outcome of his train of thought was The President, a film that follows the lives of a dictator and his grandson, who are on the run after the downfall of his totalitarian regime. It seeks to “explain the tragedies of dictatorship and revolution,” as Makhmalbaf explains, creating an impact not only as a reflection of the prevailing events in the Middle East, but also as a study of human nature.

‘There have been significant consequences to the Makhmalbaf family for documenting taboo aspects of society and the perils are all too apparent in the resulting violence and fear thereof that follows Makhmalbaf and his wife and children. The family works as a sort of mini-studio under the banner ‘Makhmalbaf Film House’, as they continue to challenge the status quo. While they now live in France, the family cannot go back home to Iran and Makhmalbaf fears that no country is safe from Iran’s reach and their active pursuit to have them killed.

‘He alleges that the Iranian government has made several attempts on both his and his family’s lives. This includes detonating a bomb on his elder daughter Samira’s set while she was shooting Two Legged Horse (2007) in Afghanistan, which resulted in one person being killed and 20 others being injured. Despite these threats, he remains devoted to the cause and is even prepared to die for it. “If hundreds and thousands of people have been killed by dictatorships, why should we be silent and do nothing? It is our responsibility,” he maintains.

‘As a direct consequence of Makhmalbaf’s documentary Afghan Alphabet (2002), an Iranian law prohibiting Afghan child refugees from attending school was repealed. As a result, 500,000 Afghan children on the Afghan-Iran border were enrolled into the Iranian education system. “Afghan Alphabet proved that cinema can lead to great social upheavals and had I been born to make just this one film, it would have been worth it.”

‘Describing his style as ‘poetic realism’ and his films “between fiction and documentary, reality, poem and philosophy,” Makhmalbaf refuses to be restricted by conventions. Although he has previously made films comprising elements of fiction and documentary styles of storytelling, his most recent efforts lean towards documentary-like features, including his previous feature film controversially shot in Israel, The Gardener (2012).

‘The President, however, is set in a fictional country with an ambiguous ending and is his most fictional and also, arguably, most commercial film to date. An advocate of peace and the idea that borders and labels increase violence, Makhmalbaf has a humanistic approach towards society.

‘“We are first human beings, then we are men or women, then we are Iranian or British, and then we are Muslims or Christians. The cinema is [like] religion… it is the religion of human beings. Who put borders between us except politics, religion and economy? We should kill these borders and not human beings,” he comments.

‘He may be yet to disclose the concept for his next film (he has about 30 complete scripts to choose from), but one thing we can be sure of is that it will most certainly have something to say about the world and perhaps, even change it. Lauded for his eclectic, innovative style of filmmaking, he continues to push the envelope both in terms of his work’s aesthetics and socio-political relevance. Makhmalbaf really is as he describes himself: “A man standing on planet Earth, with [his] hand [touching] the sky.”’ — Aleyha Ahmed

 

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Stills

 

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Further

Makhmalbaf Family Official Website
Mohsen Makhmalbaf @ IMDb
‘On Mohsen Makhmalbaf’, by Jonathan Rosenbaum
‘There’s a little Shah in all of us’
MM interviewed @ BOMB
‘Limbs of No Body: The World’s Indifference to the Afghan Tragedy’
‘Mohsen Makhmalbaf: Tehran tried to kill me’
The Mohsen Makhmalbaf Movie Script Page!
‘Open Letter to Filmmaker Mohsin Makhmalbaf’
‘Mohsen Makhmalbaf’s Visit to Israel Angers Critics Back Home’
Podcast: ‘LISTEN TO DIRECTOR MOHSEN MAKHMALBAF DISCUSS THE PRESIDENT’
‘Salaam Cinema: On Mohsen Makhmalbaf’
‘Limbs of no body: World’s indifference to the Afghan tragedy’, by Mohsin Makhmalbaf
‘Makhmalbaf: Secrets of Khamenei’s life’
‘Films have to have magic’
‘Censorship kills cinema, says filmmaker Makhmalbaf’

 

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Extras

Mohsen Makhmalbaf Interview

Mohsen Makhmalbaf receives the Robert Bresson Award at Venice Film Festival 2015

Mohsen Makhmalbaf interview with BBC Persian

Mohsen Makhmalbaf masterclass – 2015

 

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Interview

 

Q. Your daughter Hana, who is also a filmmaker (she made the 2007 movie Buddha Collapsed out of Shame), has said: “My ideas are in my film. The interpretations are for others to make.” Do you subscribe to this?
A. When I shot Gabbeh, which was about tribes who weave carpets, I made cinema like a poet reciting about nature. But when they kill people in front of you, you cannot limit yourself to doing poetry. I would prefer to rescue a person about to be drowned with my best image before letting them die. There are two types of filmmakers: those who want to show the world their cinema and those who want to change the world with their cinema.

Q. To make that cinema you had to leave Iran six years ago.
A. I’ve lived in France, Afghanistan, India and, now, in Tajikistan. The important thing isn’t the place. What you constantly have to ask yourself is where you are most useful. If I had exiled myself in Europe or in the United States, the same governments would have thrown me out because of the diplomatic relations they maintain with Iran.

Q. Cannes has paid tribute to jailed Iranian directors Jafar Panahi and Mohammad Rasoulof. Do you know their situation?
A. I have experienced their conditions so harshly that I had to leave my country. Cinema is divided in Iran. On the one hand, the directors who live there cannot shoot films because they would end up in jail. On the other, the exiled ones are those the government threatens with death. [President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad is terrified of this second group because he knows its international media impact.

Q. How do you work under this threat?
A. Three years ago, in the middle of a shoot in Afghanistan, a bomb exploded and killed several members of my crew. On my last visit to France, the police alerted me that I had to leave the country because of a bomb threat. The Iranian government has suffered at the hands of the artists and it wants revenge. My daughter Hana was going to present her film Green Days at a Lebanon festival that coincided with a visit by Ahmadinejad. Her film wasn’t screened on the order of both countries. The paradox that Hana expressed in interviews after the banning of film was the false bravery of Ahmadinejad. He’s afraid of the film, but he feels proud about traveling to other countries to denounce Israel.

Q. How does a cinema family live together?
A. I have a very involved relationship with my three children and my wife. I am a father, husband, and, at one time, film teacher to Hana and Samira [his eldest daughter and the director of films such as The Apple (1998), Blackboards (2000) and At Five in the Afternoon (2003)]. Now I have also become their companion in work and in exile. We all fight together to get through day by day.

Q. Are you continuing with your film school, the Makhmalbaf Film House?
A. No. Since I left Iran I haven’t yet gone back to giving classes. I only sporadically give the odd film workshop in some countries. What I do do is maintain email contact with a few young directors from Iran and other places such as Tajikistan.

Q. What is the current outlook for Iranian cinema?
A. It has provoked a change in society because, via media coverage made in neighboring countries, it has helped raise awareness about Iran’s problems. Maybe our films do not provoke the same reception as Hollywood films the first time, but in the long run they find a loyal public.

Q. Out of the films of yours, if you had to select one you want people to see the most, which would it be and why?
A. If you are a young filmmaker, I can suggest that you watch Salaam Cinema (1995), or A Moment of Innocence (1996). If you are a sociologist, I suggest you watch The President (2015). If you are a reader of novels and poems, I suggest Gabbeh (1996). It depends on who you are, and in which mood you are.

Q. If you were making The Cyclist today, would you have changed anything about it?
A. I can’t change my past, because if I change my past, it would be something else. It is not the correction of something; it is recreating something. For example, in that moment for The Cyclist I remember my childhood story: I saw a man who was riding a bicycle from Pakistan. I remember that story, and I added different layers on that to tell the story of Afghan society.

It was difficult, because how could you have close-up of a man who’s riding a bicycle? So I had the challenge of technique. I tried to show society through one story as well; I wanted to make a film for the public. In Iran we had three million Afghan refugees, [and] Iranian people’s attitudes were so aggressive with them. That’s why I made this film: To bring people to the
cinema, to make them more kind towards those refugee people.

Q. So you wouldn’t change anything; it’s just a matter of the story itself.
A. You know I have rules for myself. I say, films should be entertaining, to bring audiences to the cinema. I don’t like boring films. They are a waste of time. But films should have a message, and they have to have magic. When I say entertainment, I don’t mean the Hollywood and Bollywood style. I mean an attractive film. So I made The Cyclist like this. But if you look for example to A Moment of Innocence, it’s another style. The concept is different.

Q. Speaking of the messages in your films, in The Gardener you talk about how technology these days can be destructive. Do you still feel the same way?
A. You know I don’t reject technology. I put questions on quantity, and the way that we use it. For example, we have a lot of cars. But we don’t have places to go. 40 years ago we hadn’t this amount of cars, we had more places to go. Even in one country you had different styles of cities. Nowadays, I have visited maybe 60 to 70 countries – all of them are the same! There is no diversity. We are made poor by this technology.

Before, doors were paintings as well. Art and industry were together. We also had enough jobs for everyone. Now we have created machines, and we cannot compete with our machines. I reject this style of using technology. I’m not a flat-minded person to say we don’t need any. But we need tools in control of human beings, not tools that can control human beings.

 

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16 of Mohsin Makhmalbaf’s 34 films

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Here Children Do Not Play Together (2024)
‘Here Children Do Not Play Together eschews the “poetry” that has typified Makhmalbaf’s style in the last two decades. In voiceover he says the footage constitutes “research” he carried out in Jerusalem regarding the Palestinian-Israeli question, which, to him means, Why don’t they get along, especially since the Hamas attack on Oct. 7, 2023? He interviews several people, mainly a voluble Afro-Palestinian “alternative tour guide” who was once jailed by the Israelis for planting a bomb, and a younger Israeli man who is trying to bridge the considerable gap of understanding between the two sides, though in exactly what capacity it’s difficult to determine. The movie is thoughtful and tasteful in the Makhmalbaf style, but not nearly as informed as his work on Afghanistan. He concludes that when children of different cultures grow up together (i.e., go to the same schools), they rarely hold grudges, regardless of what baggage their respective cultures carry; which is hardly a novel theory.’ — philipbrasor.com

Trailer

 

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Marghe and Her Mother (2019)
’22-year-old Claudia is a single mother who lives with Marghe, her sixyear-old precocious daughter. When Claudia is kicked out of her house for failing to pay the rent, she leaves Marghe to an old woman next door.’ — Letterboxd

Trailer

 

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The President (2014)
‘In an imaginary country in the Caucasus, a President is on the run with his five-year-old grandson following a coup d’état. The two travel across the lands that the President once governed. Now, disguised as a street musician to avoid being recognized, the former dictator comes into contact with his people, and gets to know them from a different point of view. The President and his family rule their land with an iron fist, enjoying lives of luxury and leisure at the expense of their population’s misery. When a coup d’état overthrows his brutal rule and the rest of his family flees the country by plane, The President is suddenly left to care for his young grandson and forced to escape. Now the country’s most wanted fugitive with a bounty on his head, The President begins a perilous journey with the boy, criss-crossing the country to reach the sea where a ship waits to bring them to safety. Posing as street musicians and traveling together with the people who suffered for years under the dictatorship, the fallen President and the innocent child will be exposed first hand to the hardships that inspired unanimous hatred for the regime.’ — collaged

Trailer

Excerpt

 

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Ongoing Smile (2013)
‘At the age of 74, many people retire or go and spend the rest of their life in a retirement home. But Kim Dong-Ho has made the decision to live like a young and energetic man until the end of his life. He gets up early around 4 am every morning and does his exercise for an hour. Then he checks the news and replies to emails. After that, he takes the bus to work. He currently works at a university for film and media, which he founded two years ago. Kim is the man who established the largest Asian Film Festival when he was almost 60 years old. Now that he is 74, he has decided to make his first film. Every month, during his lunch and dinner he holds 60 different meetings. Most of these meetings are held to something new, while some of them are catching up with his old friends. Kim still keeps in touch with his friends, since he did his military service fifty-five years ago. He tries to gather them once a month.’ — Festival of Tolerance

Trailer

 

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The Gardener (2012)
‘It’s a common trait of modern Iranian cinema to blur the line between fiction and documentary. Abbas Kiarostami’s Close-Up (which features Mohsen) might be the most famous example in the west, but plenty of Iranian movies play this game, notably Mohsen’s A Moment of Innocence, his daughter Samira’s The Apple, and Jafar Panahi’s The Mirror and This Is Not a Film. The Gardener may be less explicit in its interrogation of cinematic reality, but it still raises worthwhile questions about the relationship between camera and subject—namely, is the camera ever separable from the cameraman’s bias? Mohsen and Maysam both record footage on their own digital cameras, and a third, unseen videographer records them. Is it possible to detect differences in perspective, even when all three cameras are shooting the same thing?’ — Ben Sachs

the entire film

 

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Scream Of The Ants (2006)
‘Scream of the Ants, whose title refers to the unheard protests of people in a godless world, lapses inexcusably into talking-head aesthetics, with various characters spouting different strains of Makhmalbaf’s own frustrated and contradictory world-critiques… but then, just as the picture precipitously lost its footing after the first act, it recovers its visual potency, at the very least, in an extended finale along the shores of the Ganges: filled with bathers, bobbing with corpses, strewn with blossoms, lapping against the concrete banks where even the wealthiest of the deceased are burned by their families for want of a proper gravesite. Again, the strange and bitter world yields itself up to Makhmalbaf’s camera without his necessarily intervening or shaping our impressions at the level of his most rigorous artistry. And yet, these moments of mysterious and discomfiting realism make Scream of the Ants an urgent record of a denied world (and not an emblem of that very denial, like The Darjeeling Limited is, for all its cosmetic wonders). In its visual austerity, its withering speeches, its unusual tolerance for nudity and verbal vulgarity, and even in its aesthetic self-sabotage, Scream of the Ants maps a Godardian arc from artistic wit and sophistication into dogmatic ideology and ascetic self-loathing, directed if not against the director himself than at least against his medium and against his world. Whether this breakdown is ameliorated or extended by the riverside coda is up to each viewer to decide, just as the question remains open as to whether Makhmalbaf has really made a movie here or else just crudely illustrated an Op/Ed that’s been thundering inside his head.’ — Nick’s Flicks Picks

Trailer

Watch the film here

 

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Sex & Philosophy (2005)
‘In the midst of a mid-life crisis Jan, a 40 year old dancing teacher, decides to instigate a revolution against himself. His first act is to summon each of his four lovers, who are unaware of each other, to join him at the dance studio where we assume he is a tutor. His revelations to the women prompt a discourse about love and the fleeting nature of happiness. But when he comes to the fourth and final woman, he finds that his own philosophy of love is not as easy to apply as he had presumed. He realizes that the more the contemporary world has become sexually oriented the farther it has moved away from love.’ — LBDVD

Excerpt

Watch the film here

 

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The Afghan Alphabet (2002)
‘In the border villages between Iran and Afghanistan, director Mohsen Makhmalbaf films the children who do not attend school and questions why they are not being educated. He encounters a group of girls studying in UNICEF classes: one of them refuses to cast off her burqa despite the fact that she has escaped Afghanistan and the threat of the Taliban. She is more afraid of the horrifying god they have created than of the Taliban themselves.’ — bfi

the entire film

 

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Kandahar (2001)
‘With humanitarian rather than political aims, Mohsen Makhmalbaf’s Kandahar (2001) was intended to focus on the plight of women in Afghanistan under a brutal oppressive regime and on the pervasive misery caused by civil strife and war between the Soviets and the US-backed Mujehadeen. Beyond its acute relevance to contemporary viewers, aesthetically Kandahar transcends the plight of individuals, and, like Gabbeh, Makhmalbaf’s magical tale of carpet weavers, works poetically: it achieves a wrenching emotional impact mostly by surreal images that evoke the permanent results of violence, such as mutilation, rather than through violence itself. One unforgettable image consists of parachutes dangling artificial limbs high above a group of men on crutches down below, running in a three-legged race to retrieve them.’ — Liza Bear, BOMB

Trailer

Excerpt

 

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The Silence (1998)
‘The Silence (Sokhout), a startlingly fresh and elegant work, is about a ten-year-old boy, Khorshid, who is blind. Khorshid’s father, in Russia, has abandoned him and his mother, who in order to sustain their existence fishes in the river on which the rural dwelling that includes their threadbare apartment is situated. This woman has no other choice but to rely on Khorshid’s meager income for rent. It is not enough, however, and in a few days’ time they will be evicted by the landlord, a greedy, powerful presence whom we never see except for, once, as a hand knocking at the door. A strange, elliptical film of haunting, limpid visual beauty, The Silence ends with two events: the eviction, as the mother, who is calling for her son, and her one great possession, a wall mirror, symbolic for art and inspiration, that is, humanity’s spirit, are rowed across the river, the mirror’s reflection in the water symbolically linking human spirituality and Nature; and the boy, as usual off on his own, passing forever into a life of the imagination in which he is able to orchestrate sounds in his environment—to which his blindness has made him acutely sensitive and receptive—into a finished piece, one in fact familiar to us as the opening movement of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. Only a fool could miss the social and political implications of such a film, and the government, not at all fooled in this regard, responded brusquely. The Silence was banned in Iran.’ — Dennis Grunes

the entire film

 

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Gabbeh (1996)
‘Astonishingly beautiful and profoundly poetic, Mohsen Makhmalbaf’s Gabbeh is quite possibly the most eye-poppingly gorgeous film ever made. This sumptuous allegorical tale focuses on an almost extinct nomadic tribe of South Eastern Iran who are famed for their intricately designed Persian “Gabbeh” carpets. As the film opens, an elderly couple are bringing their rug (their gabbeh) to a small creek lagoon to wash it. Gabbehs are thick hand-woven wool rugs that contain geometric colour fields and images from nature or history. Suddenly, a young woman depicted on the carpet miraculously comes to life and relates a story of forbidden love. A richly textured weaving of costumes, landscapes, rituals, beliefs, ethnography and traditional storytelling that casts a seductive spell.’ — Watershed

Trailer

Excerpt

 

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Salaam Cinema (1995)
‘In this direct exercise in meta-fiction that reconfigures documentary and fiction, Mohsen Makhmalbaf advertises a casting call for his new film about the centenary of cinema. He prepared 1,000 application forms but 5,000 people turned up, resulting in a riot. What follows is a series of casting interviews with a few dozen willing actors, which Makhmalbaf decides will be the film itself. With the systematic nature of the administration of the casting call, and the dominant and oppressive guise that Makhmalbaf takes on, the interviews play out much like an interrogation, a vigorous analysis of Iranian society and its desires through the voices of its people. As the power-relations between director and actors spin like a pendulum through their pointed conversations, and the act of truth and lying becomes more uncertain, a certain authenticity and intensity of cinema emerges evidently before our eyes.’ — SIFF

the entire film

 

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The Actor (1993)
‘The Actor is a 1993 Iranian film directed by Mohsen Makhmalbaf. The film features Akbar Abdi as Akbar, Fatemeh Motamed-Aria as his wife, Simin, and Mahaya Petrosian as the gypsy girl. The film is a combination of fiction and reality since the leading character has the same name and occupation as the actor who portrays the role, while the details and events are fictional.’ — Wiki

Trailer

Watch the film here

 

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The Nights of Zayandeh-rood (1991)
‘A few years before the revolution: A man, whom is a university professor in Sociology, has an accident while crossing the street with his wife. The passerby’s pass near them inattentively and therefore the man’s wife dies. When the professor recovers and returns home he throws all the papers related to his research on Sociology out of the window over the people’s heads because of the anger he has towards the inattention of people and promises himself not to work for them anymore… During the revolution: A few years later, when the revolution in Iran is at its height, the professor witnesses the crowds’ uprise from the same window. Some people are wounded and the others get killed to save the wounded. The people are no longer inattention… A few years after the revolution: The professor is sitting at home. He hears an accident sound and looks out from the window. A young biker whom has had an accident with a vehicle is dying and people are passing him inattention…’ — MUBI

Trailer

 

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The Peddler (1989)
‘The Peddler (1987), a film that brought Makhmalbaf international attention, was the first turning point in a career full of twists and turns. In this moving three-episode film about a society caught in a web of moral and social decline, as well as in several subsequent films, Mahkmalbaf began to seriously question the values he had dearly espoused in his earlier films.’ — Iran Chamber Society

Trailer

 

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Boycott (1985)
‘Boycott is a 1985 Iranian film directed by Mohsen Makhmalbaf, set in pre-revolutionary Iran. The film tells the story of a young man named Valeh (Majid Majidi) who is sentenced to death for his communist tendencies. It is widely believed that the film is based on Makhmalbaf’s own experiences. Ardalan Shoja Kaveh starred in the film.’ — collaged

Trailer

Excerpt

the entire film

 

 

*

p.s. RIP Alexander Kluge ** Carsten, Belated very happy birthday! And luck on the potential new pad. Yes, the Benning is ‘Eight Bridges’. I will report back, but I’ve seen all but a small handful of his films and always love them to one degree or another, so I assume that will follow suit. ** Jack Skelley, No Paris, more’s the pity, but gotcha. I guess Eshleman wasn’t the biggest prima donna to read at Beyond Baroque when I was there, but he was high among them for sure. I think John Giorno might take that crown. Maybe. Weekend of amaze. ** Bill, I saw O’Rourke was touring. He seemed to be doing a duo thing with someone I didn’t know? ** _Black_Acrylic, Stark rules. Having only gone through the relative hell of renting apartments, I can’t even imagine. ** Steve, Feel better whatever that requires. Here there are a lot of sniffling people here but I think mostly spring onset allergies. I’m going to start figuring out the reading today. I think I may just have to tell them to give the crowd a trigger warning. No, my birth certificate is with the government now. Hopefully the last thing is that I have to do a physical exam. We’ll see. ** Tosh Berman, She does! Wow, you knew Eshleman that long? I loved doing the programming at BB, but I sure don’t miss the hostile local diva poets. Eshleman was particularly such a snob. All power to the magazine he edited, but there’s a reason why no one talks about his poetry anymore. Anyway, yeah, the good old days. ** Barkley, Hi, Barkley! Great to see you. I seem to be perfectly fine. Mm, all I remember about that interview was that I did it on a book tour, and I think it was in Boston? But the actual circumstances, no. Weird about the FBI knowledge of Little Caesar, but I suppose not a huge surprise. The 4chan far right contingent were freaking out about my blog for a hot minute a few years ago. A zine, cool. How will it be configured? Mm, I can’t think of a very favorite Italian horror. For some reason I never have favorite horror movies in general. I should force a hierarchy. I like Fulci, obviously. All the luck possible and that you need with the surgery. I sure hope it’s shallow and easy. Take care! ** Steeqhen, Mental therapy takes time, yeah, unfortunately. When I was in therapy it took a good year or more before I started sorting myself out to the degree I wanted. I guess imagine it felt no pain because it sounds the rest would be just an imaginative leap. ** fish, Hi! College does go out of its way to make students feel like it’s make or break future decision time, but you know there’s no deadline. What are your most exciting prospective life through-lines, if you have any? I do think that surrounding yourself with artists is the way to go whatever you end up concentrating on, yes. ** HaRpEr //, She’s so great. I just cannot bear Villeneuve’s movies. I think they’re empty, pseudo-moody, hugely budgeted exercises in atmosphere. For me the ‘Blade Runner’ is the absolute worst one. The ‘Dune’ movies are like an endless, IMAX-shaped exhalation of sepia-tinted fake fog or something. ‘Nightshift’ is wonderful! I saw it at the film festival where ‘RT’ premiered. Jon Jost cinematography. I liked it a whole lot. I’m glad it getting around. ** Uday, What a week. And yet you managed to toss a thesis and build a new one amidst all of that. My week was relatively quite chill but productive in useful ways. Nothing hugely out of the ordinary. ** Okay. Maybe you would like to think about the films of Mohsen Makhmalbaf for a day? See you tomorrow.