Paint! No Matter What

The painter Khosrow Hassanzadeh owns a greengrocery in an Iranian food market. His paintings are raw and full of vigour and wild streaks, featuring detailed faces but also consisting of loose shapes, flat perspectives and scratchy lines. They always deal with people, and Hassanzadeh gets continuous inspiration from his customers. We watch him chatting with them, as they are apparently filmed with a hidden camera. His mother and wife do not like his paintings, however, which they openly admit when Hassanzadeh interviews them for the documentary. "You sacrifice your family so you can paint," his wife complains. His 10-year-old son and eight-year-old daughter approve of his art - his youngest even wants to become a painter herself. During the war with Iraq, Hassanzadeh was knocked unconscious by a bomb and thought he would die; since then, he lives as if any moment could be his last. And that means painting, even if his politically-charged work is rarely exhibited in his native country. He also created a series on that war: paintings full of people, dead and alive, in body bags.