Persian

While looking for the cast for another unfinished project, a director discovers his ideal actor, a boy at a baker’s shop. By the time he goes to hire the young boy for his film, the shopkeeper has fired him. What ensues is a search for the homeless child and, along the way, the discovery of his solitude, his survival techniques, and the mental and physical state of surrounding adults and children. When the director finally finds his actor, the young adolescent seems to need serious medical care.The film gives the public a view of the Iranian medical system; once again the inadequacies of the social system and its contradictions are highlighted. Jalili also elaborates on generosity, once a sacred notion, individual responsibility and human limitations. Seen as criticism of the current medical system, the film was withheld for three years and only released in 1998.A True Story has found its moving actor and a life story worth discovering, but the film unintentionally dragged Jalili towards the realm of melodrama. Of this film, Godard said ‘A True Story may turn out to be a film that is not made very well, but it will always be ahead of the art.’Read More »

Mr. Safari is an 83 years old retired of the post office who lives in an old neighborhood in Tehran. After the death of his wife he lives alone by himself but when his only son who lives abroad the country in Canada invites him to travel there for the treatment his ordinary life is disturbed.Read More »

Synopsis:
Country girl Fereshteh and city girl Roya, schoolmates at Tehran University in the early ’80s, become fri ends when the former tutors the latter to pay her way through architectural school. Their friendship and innocent f un are clouded only by the presence of a young man who stalks the pretty Fereshteh, demanding she marry him. She br ushes him off and the girls feel strong enough to disregard his advances, until one day he throws a bottle of acid a t Fereshteh’s cousin, mistaking him for her boyfriend. Blaming her for brining disgrace onto the family, Fereshteh’ s father forces her to return home from university, which has been closed due to the turmoil following the Islamic r evolution anyway.Read More »

SYNOPSIS:
Though much of this film is a straightforward lecture on dental hygiene delivered by a dentist facing the camera, it still manages to be persuasively Kiarostami-esque in its description of young Mohammad-Reza’s life at home and at school before he falls prey to tooth woes (interestingly, Kiarostami found the boy who was having a tooth removed, then filmed the earlier parts of the story later). That some audiences find the film amusing testifies to the humor that can accompany great discomfort.Read More »

SYNOPSIS:
An assignment from the Ministry of Education, this documentary from the last years of the Pahlavi dynasty includes interviews with government officials who predictably praise teaching as a sacred, noble, and honorable profession. The teachers who are also interviewed are less starry-eyed: one speaks of ungrateful students and the job’s poor pay. The contrasting views reflect Kiarostami’s interest in education while registering some of his reservations about how it is practiced.Read More »

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Kiarostami’s fascination with both Tehrani car culture and the uses of power in post-revolutionary society come together in this documentary about a traffic officer assigned to enforce driving restrictions in central Tehran (a locale near the director’s Kanoon office). The officer, a rock star in his own world, remains coolly authoritative as he faces a steady stream of exasperated motorists.Read More »

Nasrin is an immersive portrait of one of the courageous human rights activists and political prisoner, Nasrin Sotoudeh, and of Iran’s remarkably resilient women’s rights movement. Featuring acclaimed filmmaker Jafar Panahi (Soutoudeh appeared in his film Taxi), Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi, journalist Ann Curry, exiled women’s rights activist Mansoureh Shojaee, and Nasrin’s husband Reza Khandan. In the courts and on the streets, Nasrin has long fought for the rights of women, children, LGBT prisoners, religious and ethnic minorities, journalists, artists, and those facing the death penalty. She was arrested in June 2018 and sentenced to 38 years in prison, plus 148 lashes.Read More »

The first of Kiarostami’s films made for, rather than about, children was an experiment in combining live action and animation, done in collaboration with animator Nafiseh Riahi. As two schoolboys watch the movements of animated animals, on the TV (such as kangaroos jumping, fish swimming, etc.), one boy, played by Riahi’s son Kamal, says, “I can, too,” and imitates the actions. The music is sprightly, the mood fun. Interestingly, the second boy is played by Kiarostami’s son, Ahmad.Read More »

Quote:
The fight for power in an isolated Iranian village. Two families have been enemies for so long they cannot even remember why. The only hope for peace between the feuding families is lost when an arranged marriage agreement is broken. Some days later, the groom, Karamat, returns with a brand new minibus. But a fierce competition for passengers break out when the bride, Mehrbanou, decides to do the same…Read More »