Mohsen Makhmalbaf achieved recognition with several films made in Iran during the Eighties and Nineties. With 1998’s SOKOUT ("Silence"), he chose to film in Tajikistan, a location where the local language is a Persian dialect generally understandable by Iranians, but the culture blends Central Asian and Soviet customs. The story centers on Khorshid (Tahmineh Normatova), a ten-year-old blind boy who works tuning in…