Blackboards is an unsettling and often tragic story, a tale centred on two teachers in the mountains of Iranian Kurdistan. A handful of teachers, all carrying blackboards, search the territory for students.

Two of the teachers break away from the rest -- Said (Said Mohamadi) begins to walk along with a group of old men, mostly nomadic Kurds, who are returning to their homeland. Reeboir (Bahman Ghobadi) winds up walking with a group of children who are smugglers between Iran and Iraq. Each adolescent has a heavy pack on his back. Nobody among the aged men or the kids has an interest in learning, except one little boy who would like to learn how to write his own name.
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