Siddiq Barmak
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Siddiq Barmak (Born September 7, 1962 in Panjshir, Afghanistan) is a Tajik film director and producer and one of the celebrated figures in Persian cinema as well as cinema of Afghanistan.
He got his M.A degree in cinema direction from the Moscow film institut (VGIK) in the year 1987. He has written a few screenplays and has made a few short films. His first feature film "Osama" won several awards in international festivals.
There is a stylistic echo in Osama of the "Afghan" films by the Iranian Makhmalbaf dynasty - father Mohsen's Kandahar and daughter Samira Makhmalbaf's At Five in the Afternoon, the latter also shot in post-Taliban Kabul. Barmak made Osama with helps from Mohsen Makhmalbaf; the Iranian director invested thousands of dollars of his own money in the film, lent Barmak his Arriflex camera and encouraged him in the sending-out of the film treatment, which eventually resulted in money from Japanese and Irish producers.[1] Barmak received "UNESCO’s Fellini Silver Medal" for his drama, Osama, in 2003.
Siddiq Barmak is also director of the Afghan Children Education Movement (ACEM), an association that promotes literacy, culture and the arts, founded by Iranian film director Mohsen Makhmalbaf. The school trains actors and directors for the emerging cinema of Afghanistan.
