Half Moon

Mamo is an old and legendary Kurdish musician; he lives in Iran and wants to give one last concert in Iraqi Kurdistan. He spends months trying to get a permit, gathers his ten sons, and sets out in an ageing bus. On the road they stop at a village to pick up Hesho, a woman singer. This is going to make the journey a great deal harder. Bahman Ghobadi's film takes on the ban on women singing in public directly. When it was finished it could not be released in Iran; Ghobadi later re-cut the international print and put back the scenes in which a woman's voice is heard. It screened at San Sebastián in 2006. The telling moves between road movie and lament.