هویت مشق فیلم
Introduction to Mashq-e-Film
Purpose and Values
Mashq-e-Film is an independent, non-governmental, educational scriptwriting Atelier.
The main objective of the Atelier is to help and support independent Afghan, Iranian and Tajik filmmakers in and outside their native countries. All training programs of the Atelier are free for all participants. The basic aim of the Atelier is training filmmakers in scriptwriting, starting from idea through plot development, and creative completion of the script.
The Atelier provides online classes for Afghan, Iranian and Tajik filmmakers in their countries and abroad. Additionally, it selects applications and helps with the professional and cinematic development of the selected feature and documentary scripts. The Atelier focuses on the style and methodology of professional screenwriting. We consider the script as the basic map and foundation for film and cinema. Hence, our most important consideration is to write a strong and professional script, giving greater importance to working out words and their transformation into the language of cinema.
Film critique is not very common in Afghanistan, Iran or Tajikistan. The Atelier Mashq-e-Film aspires to enhance the practice of constructive criticism and professional critique of films and their creators. Mashq-e-Film encourages all participants to acquire and apply a critical framework to scriptwriting and filmmaking.
The Atelier does not produce films. It provides advice and guidance to screenwriters and directors on finding producers and production companies.
Freedom of expression is one of the fundamental values of Atelier Mashq-e-Film. The Atelier strives for gender equality in the selection of projects. Atelier Mashq-e-Film is not and will not be associated with any political or ideological organizations.
Atiq Rahimi
Writer, filmmaker and screenwriting teacher
Atiq Rahimi was born in Kabul and immigrated to France in 1984. He holds a PhD in Cinema from the Sorbonne University.
After making several documentaries, Rahimi made his first feature film "Ash and Soil" in 2004 based on the novel of the same name and his own writing in Afghanistan, which won twenty international awards.
Rahimi received the prestigious French Goncourt Prize in 2008 for his novel The Patient Stone. The screenplay of this novel was written in collaboration with the famous French screenwriter Jean-Claude Carrier, whose film was made in 2012 and was released in cinemas. Atiq Rahimi has written several other joint screenplays with Jean-Claude Carrier.
So far, he has written the novels Ash and Dust, A Thousand Houses of Sleep and Oppression, The Patient Stone, The Curse of Berdstoyevsky, The Saqqa, and The Mirror Guest. Rahimi made the film "Lady of the Nile" in 2019, based on the novel of the same name, written by Ms. Mokasunghe, an African writer. Ffilm "Lady of the Nile" Crystal Bear Award as Best Film at the 2020 Berlin Film Festival received.
Atiq Rahimi has also written several opera plays in France. He has also written and worked on a play inspired by the story of "Shirin and Farhad" for the opera.
Rahimi teaches screenwriting at West Group, one of the screenwriting centers in France. He has also written a screenwriting methodology.
Siddiq Barmak
Filmmaker, writer and producer
Siddiq Barmak was born in the Panjshir province of Afghanistan and studied cinema at the Soviet University of Cinema.
His film "Alien" won the Best Short Fiction Award at the 1989 Pyongyang North Korean Film Festival.
"Osama" is Barmak's first feature film, which won more than twenty film awards, including the Golden Camera at the Cannes Film Festival and the Best Film Award at the 2003 London Film Festival. "Osama" first won the Golden Globe Award for Best Non-English Language Film in 2004 for Afghan Cinema.
"Opium War" won the European Film Critics' Choice Award and the Mark April Award from the Rome Film Festival, the Best Film Award from Batumi, Georgia, and the Best Director Award at the 2009 Pristina-Kosovo Film Festival.
Filmmaking, publishing the first film magazine in Afghanistan, paving the way for educating and making films for young filmmakers, judging at domestic and international festivals, and teaching cinema at Kabul University are other activities in Barmak's career.
Youssef Charifi
Producer
Youssef Charifi was born in Afghanistan and came to Montpellier, France in the late 1960s. He was supposed to study agriculture but turned to cinema. After studying cinema at Paul Valerie University in Montpellier, he began working in three main areas of filmmaking, including "image, sound and montage." Sharifi has worked as an independent secretary for various documentaries on local and national television networks in France. From 1990 to 2001, he worked as a teacher at the Center for the Training and Development of Journalists (CFPJ). In 1995, as a teacher at CFPJ, he produced documentaries for film and television. In 1996, Sharifi founded the production company Pages & Images, which was responsible for producing the documentary series "Kilometer Delta" for French Channel 5 television. So far, sixty documentaries, feature films and short animations, as well as two web documentaries have been produced by Pages & Images.
Youssef Charifi traveled to Kabul in 2005 with French producer Cévren Blanchett and introduced the Varan training studio project to Afghanistan. Atelier Varane became a center for teaching documentary filmmaking in Kabul, paving the way for a number of documentaries.
Youssef Charifi has been working on various projects in the field of digital media, documentary web and virtual reality since 2013.
Nelofer Pazira
Flmmaker, journalist & writer
Nelofer Pazira is an Afghan-Canadian writer, filmmaker, and journalist. She starred in the movie Kandahar (2001), which was based on her real-life story. Nelofer has written, directed and/or produced one dramatic feature and three documentary films. Return to Kandahar (2003), Audition (2009), Act of Dishonour (2010), and her latest documentary This Is Not A Movie (2019). She’s been a jury member at film festivals around the world.
Nelofer has worked for the Canadian Broadcasting (CBC) TV and Radio, reporting from Iraq, Afghanistan, Turkey, Egypt and Syria. Her radio documentary Of Paradise and Failure was the winner of New York’s Media Award, and in 2016, The Road to Damascus won the 2016 Gabriel Award. Her book, A Bed of Red Flowers: In Search of My Afghanistan, was awarded the Drainie-Taylor Biography Prize. Nelofer assisted UNESCO in 2001-2002 as a cultural ambassador in their work inside Afghanistan.
Nelofer has a degree in Journalism and English Literature (Carleton University) and an MA in Anthropology/Sociology and Religion (Concordia University) and two honorary Doctorates (Carleton and Thomson Rivers Universities).
Hussain Danesh
Danesh was born in Kabul, Afghanistan. He studied film making in Iran and is a member of Swedish Film Critics Association.
He directed his first short – 8mm -- film "The Mirror" (1992) in Iran. He worked as a writer and film director at the Afghan Film in Kabul between 1993 – 1995, during which he also held a set of screenwriting workshops for Afghan filmmakers. He wrote “Bread and Shoe” and “Innocent” scripts.
He directed “The Passage”, a feature documentary about the civil war of 1992-2000 in Kabul. He was wounded during the filming. “The Passage” was awarded the Best Documentary Human Rights Prize by the Human Rights Film Festival in Kabul and received a Special Mention at the Montreal Documentary Film Festival.
Danesh has been living in Sweden since 2010, where he is working as a Camera technician in Swedish film industry. He has been a member of jury at Stockholm Afghan Film Festival. His focus is on recognition of script and visuals in cinema and as a film critic, he has written film reviews for BBC Persian, Nebesht.com, Iranian Puli-Ferouza series, and for several Afghan newspapers. He has published a critique of “Our Lady of the Nile: in Conversation with Atiq Rahimi”, and is currently working on his forthcoming book, “Critical Essays”, a collection of film reviews.
Film Critic, Documentary Filmmaker
Honorary Members
In addition to the regular instructors of the Atelier, we will recruit and introduce several honorary members who will collaborate as guest speakers.
Honorary members are independent and non-state directors, literary and screenwriters, filmmakers and film producers. The honorary members will be invited from cinema centers around the world, with emphasis on independent Afghan, Iranian and Tajik filmmakers.
Instructors:
Mashq-e-Film instructors have teaching experience in the fields of scriptwriting and directing feature and documentary films, in addition to their backgrounds in art, literature and cinema.
Administrative Structure:
Atiq Rahimi is the current President of the Ateiler Mashq-e-Film. The President is elected through a vote by five permanent founding members.
President: Atiq Rahimi
Vice-President: Siddiq Barmak
Director of Educational and Artistic Development: Hussain Danesh
Director of International Coordination: Nelofer Pazira
Director of Finance & Admin: Youssef Charifi