A year after auteur Abbas Kiarostami’s death last July, Close-Up Film Center in London will celebrate the art of his cinema by screening some of his rarely seen early films from June 5-19.

The program ‘Abbas Kiarostami: Early Works’ will show a series of documentary, short and feature films made in the 1970s and 1980s. A documentary on the filmmaker’s life and career as well as his last short film are also included, Mehr News Agency reported.

In 1969, Kiarostami (1940-2016) helped set up a filmmaking department at the Institute for Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults (known as Kanoon) in Tehran, and made most of his early works there. Its debut production and Kiarostami’s first film was the 12-minute ‘The Bread and Alley’ (1970).

The short works to be shown during the 15-day event in London include ‘Breaktime’ (1972), ‘The Solution for One Problem’ (1975), ‘Colors’ (1975), ‘So Can I’ (1976), ‘Solution No. 1’ (1978), ‘Orderly or Disorderly’ (1981) and ‘The Chorus’ (1982).

Also to be screened are Kiarostami’s mid-length movies, ‘The Experience’ (1973) and ‘A Suit for the Wedding’ (1976); feature films ‘The Traveler’ (1974) and ‘The Report’ (1977); and documentaries ‘First Graders’ (1985) and ‘Homework’ (1989).

Seifollah Samadian’s ‘76 Minutes and 15 Seconds with Abbas Kiarostami’ (2016) made on the life and career of the renowned auteur and ‘Take Me Home’, the last short film by Kiarostami, are also scheduled.

The program portrays the filmmaker reframing the world and the relationships between individuals through his creative involvement with actors - often amateurs and children - producing philosophical works that reinvigorated the genres of documentary and narrative fiction, frequently blurring the lines between the two.

Film critic Ehsan Khoshbakht has selected the movies and organized the event which is supported by the British Council.

A booklet in English about the films will be distributed as a guide for the films being screened. It contains famous critics’ reviews and opinions on Kiarostami’s early films.

Source: Financial Tribune