Quick Facts
Biography
Hana Makhmalbaf (Persian: حنا مخملباف) (born September 3, 1988, Tehran) is an Iranian filmmaker. She is the younger sister of filmmaker Samira Makhmalbaf and daughter of filmmakers Mohsen Makhmalbaf and Marzieh Makhmalbaf.
Career
Her first short film was shown at the Locarno Film Festival in Ticino, Switzerland when she was eight years old. Her first full film was in 2003 and entitled Joy of Madness. The film is a documentary about the making of Samira's At Five in the Afternoon. Makhmalbaf was able to take advantage of being only 14 to amass much candid digital footage when Samira was trying to persuade Afghan people to take part in her film. The disadvantage was that she was nearly forbidden from being at its premiere at the Venice Film Festival. This is because the film was unrated and Italy has rules concerning minors attending unrated films.
Her first feature film, Buddha Collapsed out of Shame, won an award at Festival du nouveau cinéma in Montreal, Quebec, Canada in 2007, as well as two awards from San Sebastian International Film Festival, Spain, and the Crystal Bear for the Best Feature Film by the Generation Kplus Children’s Jury at the Berlinale Film Festival 2008.
Her second feature, Green Days premiered at the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival. Begun as a documentary about the run-up to the 2009 Presidential Election in Iran, it was completed by inter-cutting scenes of the post-election violence garnered from cell-phone and other amateur videos circulating anonymously.