First Graders
UW Cinematheque 821 University Ave., UW Vilas Hall, Room 4070, Madison, Wisconsin
press release: Iranian Discoveries series
Iran | 1984 | DCP | 83 min. | Farsi with English subtitles
Director: Abbas Kiarostami
Inspired by his own sons’ schooling, the first of Kiarostami’s two documentary features about education is a wonderful and fascinating movie that is often overlooked in favor of the later Homework (1989). First Graders looks in on a schoolyard of playful boys but mainly transpires in the office of a supervisor who has to deal with latecomers and discipline problems. You can almost see the boys’ personalities forming in their first encounters with authorities and peers outside the home. Preceded by two terrific Kiarostami short films: Bread and Alley (1970) and Toothache (1980). Co-presented with the support of UW Madison’s Middle East Studies Program.
Screenings mostly take place at 4070 Vilas Hall, 821 University Avenue. Once-a-month Sunday afternoon screenings take place at the Chazen Museum of Art, 750 University Avenue. In accord with current UW Madison policies, masks are required for entry to our venues. All Cinematheque screenings are free and open to the public. Please visit our website for a complete listing of programs and descriptions from September 3 through December 18.
IRANIAN DISCOVERIES
In November, we are pleased to present a restored DCP of Abbas Kiarostami’s marvelous non-fiction portrait of Tehran school boys, First Graders (1984). Often overlooked in the shadow of the more widely-shown Homework (1989), First Graders is the first of Kiarostami’s two documentary features about education. While a lot of Iranian cinematic imports over the last three or four decades have been easily classifiable as neorealist works, Mohammad Reza Aslani’s Chess of the Wind (1976), also showing in a new restoration, is, as Cinematheque programmer Mike King writes, “a haunting depiction of crumbling aristocracy much more redolent of Visconti than Kiarostami..an essential addition to the canon of Iranian art cinema.”