17 June, 8:30 pm, Gloria Kino

The disarming centerpiece of a trilogy of films by Abbas Kiarostami, this work heads towards the same place that Roberto Rossellini set out for in the 1950s. It takes a far-sighted approach to one of the major cinematic themes of the last 15 years – the blurring of all boundaries between ‘found’ and ‘staged’ images. A film director from Tehran travels with his young son into the mountains of northern Iran, where a major earthquake has recently claimed the lives of over 50,000 people. As he passes through villages and camps he searches for the main actors from his last film Where Is The Friend’s Home? – which was indeed the first film in Kiarostami’s trilogy. The filmmaker is played by an actor, and the switch between his perspective and that of his son subtly heightens the level of reflection. However, much of what the pair find is ‘real’, not least the strength and optimism of the survivors – in many places their main concern is to install TV aerials in time to watch the Football World Cup which is due to start soon.


Va zendegi edameh darad (And Life Goes On)
Abbas Kiarostami, 1992, 35mm, Colour

ERROR: Content Element type "page_php_content_pi1" has no rendering definition!