yidff1999ogawa-proInternaional-CompWorld-special
yidff1999YanagisawaHisaoNewAsianCurrentsJapanesePanoramaJorisIvens
yidff1999VIDEOACTIVISMCaseStudyJurorstransrate-English

beforenext
@
Kamas Dolls
Arousakha-ye Kamas

IRAN / 1995 / Persian / Color / 16mm / 28 min

Director, Script: Bahram Azimpour
Photography: Morteza Poursamadi
Sound: Mehdi Azadi
Editing: Abbas Ganjavi
Producer: Mohammad-Reza Sarhangi
Source: Cima Media International
64 Hedayat St, Yakhchal Ave., Tehran 19497 IRAN
Phone: 98-21-2548032 / Fax: 98-21-2551914

@
Bahram Azimpour

Born in 1959 in Tehran. Graduate of Tehran University's Faculty of Fine Arts, majoring in Stage Directing. Besides directing and acting in a number of plays, he was involved in professional Iranian cinema as assistant director, programmer, and casting director since 1989. Kamas Dolls was his first experience in filmmaking as a director. Other documentaries include Chamar (1996), and Dobeh (1996).

A piece of wood is wrapped in several layers of cloth scraps. Such are dolls for the girls of Kamas village. Dolls, but more like alter-egos, as the girls change their ' clothes' and play-act their rituals according to the adult world. Their attitude is serious; this is no ' game' for them. Only when they allow the dolls to dance to wedding music do brilliant carefree smiles break out. One of many excellent films in a series presenting children from all regions of Iran.
Director's Statement

Kamas is a village in the western part of Iran, in a province named "Kurdestan," where Kurds live.
Kamas Dolls is the poetic expression of work, play, friendships and dreams of village girls, in the form of dolls which they make themselves; girls who practice life with their dolls alongside their mothers. During daytime, the village girls work like grownups and at night they put their dolls to sleep in cradles, singing lullabies to them.
The dolls die; the girls bury the dead in a ceremony. They put black clothes on their dolls and mourn for the dead one along with the other dolls. And when the village is filled with joy over a wedding, the girls put colorful clothes on their dolls and take them to the feast. The dolls dance and joy, and so do the girls; a dance mixed with childhood dreams and regrets of Kamas girls.
@ beforenext

COPYRIGHT:Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival Organizing Committee