Kiarostami Retrospective
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Sep 14 - Oct 6, 2019 — 7 Features, 4 Shorts, 4 Venues
At Northwest Film Forum:
Sep. 14 | Where is the Friend’s House? (1987)
Sep. 15 | The Traveler (1974)
At SIFF Film Center:
Sep. 20–22 | Taste of Cherry (1997)
Sep. 21–22 | And Life Goes On (1992)
At Grand Illusion:
Sep. 28–29 | Through the Olive Trees (1994)
Sep. 27–29 | Close-Up (1990) on glorious 35mm!
At The Beacon:
Oct. 5–6 | The Wind Will Carry Us (1999)
Oct. 6 | Problems with Many Solutions: Short Films of Abbas Kiarostami (1975–81)
At Northwest Film Forum:
Sep. 14 at 7:30pm | Where is the Friend's House?
(1987, 87 min)
The first film in the Koker Trilogy, Kiarostami’s sublimely interlaced series of stories set in the Northern Iranian village of Koker, a schoolboy zigzags determinedly through town to return a misplaced book to his classmate. Shot through with all the wonder, beauty, tension, and mystery one day can contain, Where is the Friend’s House? is a child’s-eye adventure of the everyday.
Sep. 15 at 7:30pm | The Traveler
(1974, 83 min)
A boy in a provincial city, determined to scrape together enough money for a ticket to a soccer game, lies and cheats his way towards his ultimate goal. The quietly fierce energy of its young star makes for a captivating tale of youthful obsession.
At SIFF Film Center:
Sep. 20–22 | Taste of Cherry
(1997, 95 min)
Middle-aged Mr. Badii (Homayoun Ershadi) drives through the hilly outskirts of Tehran, searching for someone to rescue or bury him. Along the way, he picks up three passengers, all from different walks of life, all eliciting different views on choice and mortality. This emotionally complex meditation on life and death won the 1997 Palme d’Or at Cannes.
Sep. 21–22 | And Life Goes On
(1992, 95 min)
In the aftermath of the 1990 earthquake that killed 50,000 people in Iran, Kiarostami’s camera surveys not only the devastation but also teeming life in the wake of disaster in the second Koker Trilogy film. This poignant road movie blends fiction and reality as its protagonist (a film director) searches for the young boys who acted in Where is the Friend’s House? among the survivors.
At Grand Illusion:
Sep. 28–29 | Through the Olive Trees
(1994, 103 min)
The final Koker Trilogy film peels away layer after layer of artifice as it investigates the elusive relationship between cinema and reality. Unfolding “behind the scenes” of And Life Goes On, this ineffably lovely human comedy follows the complications that arise when one of the actors pines for the woman cast as his wife, who, in real life, will have nothing to do with him.
Sep. 27–29 | Close-Up
(1990, 98 min)
** 35mm print! **
A young man is arrested on charges that he fraudulently impersonated the well-known filmmaker Mohsen Makhmalbaf. This documentary-fiction hybrid takes that sensational real life event as the starting point for a stunning, multilayered investigation into movies, identity, artistic creation, and existence.
At The Beacon:
Oct. 5–6 | The Wind Will Carry Us
(1999, 118 min)
A TV crew from Tehran arrives in a remote Kurdish village to film a funeral ceremony but are stymied when the old woman they expect to die clings to life. A poetic, fable-like drama about professional and personal frustration, this is the most tantalizingly opaque of Kiarostami’s films.
Oct. 6 at 4:30pm | Problems with Many Solutions: Short Films of Abbas Kiarostami
(1975–81, TRT 87 min)
