Why I tried to kill the Shah of Iran - filmmaker Mohsen Makhmalbaf interviewed
The film director, who was sentenced to death aged 17, talks about surviving multiple assassination attempts and sharing a prison cell in Iran with the now-Supreme Leader's brother.
WHEN I WAS 17 (in 1974), I was sentenced to death. I had tried to kill the king of Iran (Mohammad Reza Pahlavi), to get rid of the dictatorship. I attacked a policeman to get his gun, to shoot the king, but I was arrested.
THE POLICE SHOT ME. The bullet came through my back and out of my stomach. I went to political prison, where the shah's secret police - Savak - tortured me so badly the shin of my left leg was destroyed. Because I was under 18, it was (later) decided I was too young to die.
The bullet came through my back and out of my stomach
THE BROTHER OF THE Supreme Leader (Ayatollah Ali Khamenei) was my cellmate. I liked him then. In those years, those (sort of) people were intellectual and searching for democracy. Now they are against everything they dreamed of before.
overthrew the Pahlavi dynasty and I was freed. In prison I had read 2,000 books, and realised that Iran had a culture of dictatorship, not just a dictator. To change our government, we had to change our culture. I started making films.
WITHOUT ANY KNOWLEDGE of cinema. I thought to myself, "If the Lumiere [brothers, Auguste and Louis] can make films without going to university, why not me?"
BEFORE THE REVOLUTION, fundamentalists had burned Cinema Rex in the city of Abadan, killing 470 people. After the revolution, cinema became popular for three reasons: foreign films were forbidden, people had nothing else to do for fun and TV was full of lying, but cinema was full of truth.