Abbas Kiarostami, a Cinema of Participation [Introduction to Harvard Film Archive Retrospective, May 2020]

Abbas Kiarostami circa late 60s, probably in his studio. On the wall (left) the poster for Masoud Kimiai's Come Stranger (1968), designed by Kiarostami.

Written for Harvard Film Archive's forthcoming retrospective dedicated to Kiarostami. More info here. — EK


Known for single-handedly putting Iran on the map of international cinema, Abbas Kiarostami’s filmmaking style was shaped by a variety of Persian arts, especially poetry. Reframing the world and the relationships between individuals through his creative involvement with actors—often amateurs, often children—and showing a keen eye for the beauty of landscapes, he produced philosophical works that reinvigorated the genres of documentary and narrative fiction.

Born in 1940, Kiarostami developed a love of painting at a young age, which led him to enroll in Tehran’s University of Fine Arts. During the 1960s he was involved in the film and television industry, both as a director of commercials and as a title designer for films. After the initiation of the Institute for the Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults (known as Kanoon), which as part of its artistic activities provided funding and facilities for the production of films for or about children, Kiarostami joined the organization and made The Bread and Alley, a short film about a boy’s fear of a stray dog.

5 Nowruz Recommendations [1399]

آخرین مرحله

پنج پیشنهاد تماشای نوروز، نوشته شده برای ماهنامۀ فیلم. — احسان خوش‌بخت

آتش‌ می‌آید (الیور لَکس، 2019) – بیرون از سینمایی که نمایش کار تازۀ این فیلمساز فرانسوی در آن تازه تمام شده بود، دوستی که نقشی جدی در جنبش‌های محیط زیستی دارد این فیلم غریب و دشوار برای طبقه‌بندی را فیلمی محیط زیستی و یک زنگ خطر موقر و غیرمستقیم می‌دانست. اما برای من داستان رابطه پسری تازه از زندان آزاد شده با مادر سالخورده‌اش در کوهستان‌های پردرخت گالیشیای اسپانیا طنینی انجیلی داشت. شاید نظر هردویمان تا حدی وارد باشد؛ هرچه باشد هم دنیای امروزمان پر از آتش‌های مهار نشده است و هم داستان‌های انجیل. فیلم بهترین سکانس آتش تاریخ سینما را دارد.

The House Is Black — Which Version to Screen

The House Is Black (1962), the only film directed by the poet Forough Farrokhzad before her tragic death at the age of 37, is short like the life of its creator. Only twenty minutes long, this haunting piece of cinema and poetry has become a milestone not only for Iranian cinema but also for women filmmakers in general. However, many people viewers don't realise that almost every single circulating print of the film has been incomplete and not the featuring the version that Farrokhzad originally cut. Or I should say all the prints were missing elements until September 2019 when the film was restored by Cineteca di Bologna.

If you have seen the film in 35mm prints in one of the European or American films festivals, it's very likely that you have seen a print preserved either by Oberhausen Film Festival (where it received the main prize of the International Jury for the best documentary in 1964) or an analogue restoration of the film by CNC in France. Both prints, though fine in quality, miss verses of poetry and both have burnt-in French subtitles with a translation which is not exactly flawless.

Four Iranian New Wave Films That You Must See

The Cow (1970)

Written for the catalogue of the 2015's edition of Il Cinema Ritrovato. The two other essential titles which were restored and shown in Bologna a few years after this were Brick & Mirror and The House Is Black.


A SIMPLE EVENT: THE BIRTH OF IRANIAN NEW WAVE CINEMA


This programme offers one way of looking at the birth of modern cinema in Iran, a development now commonly referred to as the Iranian New Wave. The films presented here (The Night It Rained, Night of the Hunchback, The Cow, A Simple Event) make up roughly one quarter of the New Wave films and were selected according to accessibility and print quality above notions of artistic merit alone.

This particular narrative concerns four filmmakers, each of whom returned home to Iran following a period spent overseas, in order to revolutionise, even if subconsciously, their national cinema. In doing so they also rebelled against a society they found apathetic and divided over matters of justice.

Il Cinema Ritrovato XXXIV

May 15, 2020 update: The festival has been postponed. New dates yet to be announced.


Bologna calling!

All the elements of an internationally curated programme for Il Cinema Ritrovato 2020 are coming together fast and we thought we should update you on some of the wonderful strands and wide-ranging films that we will be presenting this year.

The festival takes place from 20 to 28 June, the final day being a 'bonus' day, showing our curators’ favourite films from each section.

We also tried an experiment last year which we would like to repeat: we started a couple of days earlier as a warm-up, screening only documentaries on the subjects of the main strands. This means that if you decide to get to Bologna sooner and overcome your jetlag before the main festival begins, there will be films for you!

And of course, there’s Piazza Maggiore and its evening screenings which was described by one critic as the “Glastonbury of cinema… without the mud!”

This year, as in every year, in addition to the most recent restorations – a list of which we will reveal in the near future – we will be bringing you treasures from archives from around the world, including an extensive focus on the Komiya Collection, the centrepiece of this year’s silent screenings.

Our Asian adventures continue with works from Japan and India, two of the richest national cinemas. From Japan, the artistry of cult director Yuzo Kawashima will be the subject of an overview retrospective, while India’s Parallel Cinema, perhaps the most unexplored chapter in the sub-continent’s cinematic history, will be presented screening the best available archival prints and one brand new restoration.

During a particularly turbulent time in the world – and only months to go before the US presidential election – Henry Fonda for President is a section which not only features the star of this edition but also provides an opportunity to catch some absolute classics of the canon.
Thrilling discoveries await you in programmes dedicated to Soviet women directors, Frank Tuttle and Stuart Heisler.

Henry King Ranked

Henry King on the set of Jesse James with Nancy Kelly and Tyrone Power

In 2019, I put together a tribute to Henry King in Bologna where Il Cinema Ritrovato featured 12 films by this gentle giant of American cinema. The reception was overwhelming and the enthusiasm contagious. Rounding up that year with King, I'm posting the programme notes written for that retrospective here on this blog along with this ranking of the King's filmography. Feel free to add yours in the Comments section below.

Soul and Craft: A Portrait of Henry King

Henry King on the set of The Gunfighter (1950). (C) 20th Century Fox

Henry King’s world can be likened to the basement of Paradise, if ever there was one. His films are often idyllic, yet they are set in a less comfortable corner of Paradise, one which falls short of perfection, and even accommodates darkness. The lower aspects of a higher plain fascinated King, and that’s where the real stories unfolds. Telling graceful tales of Americana in an almost Chekhovian style became King’s signature. If small town USA was taken for Paradise, King’s gaze was directed at the fall of this idealised world, at what happens when a dream ends. The dreamers become drifters and King remained faithful to the actors who portrayed them. Tyrone Power, King’s own discovery, appeared in eleven films directed by his mentor; Gregory Peck in six.

A Century of Korean Cinema, from Bologna to London

A slightly longer version of a note written for the catalogue of London Korean Film Festival 2019.


"There is a grave and learned air about the city, and a pleasant gloom upon it," wrote Charles Dickens of the city of Bologna, "that would leave [a] distinct and separate impression in the mind, among a crowd of cities." Grave and learned? Maybe. Gloom? Never, or shall we say Mr Dickens didn't get there in time for Il Cinema Ritrovato's evening screening in Piazza Maggiore? He would have loved Luis Buñuel's Los Olvidados which was seen this year by some 4,000 viewers.

Filmfarsi Chat with Toby Miller

Toby Miller interviews me for his Cambridge radio show on the movies. The occasion is the screening of Filmfarsi at Cambridge Film Festival on October 22 and 23. He has posted a transcription of the interview on TAKE ONE website:

Toby Miller: How did you decide to shine a light on the movies of Filmfarsi?

Ehsan Khoshbakht: Before I began my career in writing and working on film, my background was in architecture and urban design, and it was this background that actually initiated the Filmfarsi project. I decided to look at the use of modern architecture in Iranian popular films from before the Revolution. As I began to watch this period of Iranian cinema I realised that people outside Iran really didn’t know much about them.

Toby: And where does the term Filmfarsi originate from?

Ehsan: Filmfarsi was coined by one man in 1953 – the same the year as the coup. Amir Houshang Kavousi – educated in France and very interested in Art-house cinema – came up with term knowing that in Persian if you merge two words the result, as with Filmfarsi, is something that means neither Film nor Farsi (Persian). So it was a derogatory description by somebody who saw themselves as an enemy of Iranian popular cinema. But what I try to do in my documentary is show that the word today couldn’t be something entirely negative. What began as a way to make fun of Iranian commercial filmmakers is now rather something which describes a cinema which ran parallel to the Iranian art-house cinema we know as the New Wave.

The Hills of Marlik (Ebrahim Golestan, 1963)

The Hills of Marlik 

The restored version of The Hills of Marlik played at Venice Classics 2019. Golestan passed away yesterday August 22, 2023. – EK



TAPPEHA-YE MARLIK [The Hills of Marlik]
Iran, 1963/1964, Director: Ebrahim Golestan

Alternative title: The Elements. Script.: Ebrahim Golestan. Director of photography: Soleiman Minassian. Editing: Ebrahim Golestan. Composer: Morteza Hannaneh. Voice-over.: Brian Spooner (English voice-over), Ebrahim Golestan (Farsi voice-over). Prod.: Golestan Film Studio [aka Golestan Film Unit]

A 3,000-year-old site in the north of Iran is simultaneously excavated by archaeologists and fertilized by farmers. Another example of Golestan’s documentary work about classical elements, in which the past touches the present, and there is a clear continuity among the forms of human life detected by the camera, as it breathes life into dead objects.