Monday 13/11/2000

The subject of this film refers to the life of children living in an area of Iranian Kurdistan and are occupied with smuggling in their effort to survive the adverse financial and weather conditions. The Iranian director of this film, Mr. Bahman Ghobadi has worked with Abbas Kiarostami in many films and has made 34 short films.

One could say that the film "A time for drunken horses" is a family matter since, as the director said during the Press Conference, his whole family, friends and relatives worked together as actors and assistants in order to reduce the production cost.

Mr. B. Ghobadi had to deal with the fear that children felt at the beginning since it was the first time they saw cameras or televisions and also with the weather conditions that were inexplicably good -it did not snow for several days- fact that delayed the production and raised the cost.

He highlighted the difficulties that Kurds meet since Kurdistan is divided in four parts that belong to Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria and they become smugglers in order to survive. Horses and mules are regarded important assets and many people prefer even to sell a piece of their land in order to buy an animal that could help them carry goods beyond the border.

Films are censored and directors are obliged to submit the screenplay in a committee before getting the approval. Directors are thus limited to just cite the influence on social groups and especially children and not to be involved in the problem itself.

Mr. B. Ghobadi said that he was influence by all kinds of cinema and underlined Angelopoulos' influence in his work and especially the film "The suspended step of the stork".

In reference to cinema in his homeland, the director mentioned that the success of Iranian directors during the last years has increased people's interest. Nowadays people turn professionally to cinema and at the same time, European countries such as France are interested in the cinematic production of Iran.