And Life Goes On
UW Cinematheque 821 University Ave., UW Vilas Hall, Room 4070, Madison, Wisconsin
press release: Iran | 1992 | DCP | 106 min. | Persian with English subtitles
Director: Abbas Kiarostami
Cast: Farhad Kheradmand, Buba Bayour, Hocine Rifahi
A film director (Kheradmand, standing in for Kiarostami) returns to the Koker region where he made the film Where is the Friend’s Home? five years earlier. In Koker, now devastated by a powerful earthquake, the director searches for his two young stars, who may have been killed in the disaster. While subtly blurring the line between documentary and fiction, Kiarostami’s masterwork emerges as a testament to the resiliency of the human spirit. Preceded by Kiarostami’s short film Solution (1978, 11 min.).
Abbas Kiarostami: The Koker Trilogy and More: This fall, the Cinematheque presents new restorations of the three films that firmly cemented the reputation of Iran’s Abbas Kiarostami (1940-2016) as one of the world’s leading cinema artists. Eventually known as “The Koker Trilogy,” these films collectively tell the story of the mountainous Koker region in Northern Iran and its resilient, hard-working and life-affirming residents, told with universality, simplicity and cleverness that has made them favorites of audiences in all parts of the world. Using bare-boned plots that recall Italian neorealism, Kiarostami manages to touch us without using complicated or forced contrivances that are de rigeur in contemporary popular cinema. In addition, you’ll also have a chance to catch-up with Kiarostami’s moving feature-length documentary, Homework (1989) along with several of his brilliant short films. Kiarostami’s work is a testament to the notion that great art knows no national boundaries.