After the sweltering summer month of May, we move to the monsoon month of June, where the freshness and fragrance of air and rain fill the atmosphere. Let the same freshness continue in our Wednesday screenings at Lamakaan as we remember one of the most iconic names in the world of cinema, Abbas Kiarostami.
Abbas Kiarostami (Persian: عباس کیارستمی (22 June 1940 – 4 July 2016) was an Iranian film director, screenwriter, poet, photographer, and film producer. An active filmmaker from 1970, Kiarostami had been involved in the production of over forty films, including shorts and documentaries. Kiarostami attained critical acclaim for directing the Koker trilogy (1987–1994), Close-Up (1990), The Wind Will Carry Us (1999), and Taste of Cherry (1997), which was awarded the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival that year. In later works, Certified Copy (2010) and Like Someone in Love (2012), he filmed for the first time outside Iran: in Italy and Japan, respectively. His films Where Is the Friend's Home? (1987), Close-Up and The Wind Will Carry Us were ranked among the 100 best foreign films in a 2018 critics' poll by BBC Culture. Close-Up was also ranked one of the 50 greatest movies of all time in the famous decennial Sight & Sound poll conducted in 2012.
Kiarostami had worked extensively as a screenwriter, film editor, art director, and producer and had designed credit titles and publicity material. He was also a poet, photographer, painter, illustrator, and graphic designer. He was part of a generation of filmmakers in the Iranian New Wave. This Persian cinema movement started in the late 1960s and emphasized poetic dialogue and allegorical storytelling dealing with political and philosophical issues.
Kiarostami had a reputation for using child protagonists, documentary-style narrative films,[9] for stories in rural villages, and conversations that unfold inside cars, using stationary mounted cameras. He is also known for his use of Persian poetry in the dialogue, titles, and themes of his films. Kiarostami's films contain a notable degree of ambiguity, an unusual mixture of simplicity and complexity, and often a mix of fictional and documentary elements. The concepts of change and continuity and the themes of life and death play a major role in Kiarostami's works.
Film Title: SHIRIN | 2008| 92 Mins | Iran | Persian Language with English Subtitles
About the film: Shirin (Persian: شیرین) is a 2008 Iranian drama film directed by Abbas Kiarostami.[1] Some critics consider the film a notable twist in Kiarostami's artistic career.
The film features close-ups of many notable Iranian actresses and French actress Juliette Binoche as they watch a film based on a part mythological Persian romance tale of Khosrow and Shirin, with themes of female self-sacrifice. The film has been described as "a compelling exploration of the relationship between image, sound, and female spectatorship." The film depicts the audience's emotional involvement with the story. The story is read between the tragic and kitsch by a cast of narrators led by Manoucher Esmaieli. It is accompanied by a historical "film score" by Morteza Hananeh and Hossein Dehlavi.
Screening followed by Discussion. All are Welcome. Entry is Free & Open to all!