TEHRAN- “The Project,” a 47-minute sketch film for “Taste of Cherry” that Abbas Kiarostani made with his son Bahman in 1997 will be screened and reviewed at the Art Garden in Tehran on Thursday.

The review session will be held with the presence of the actor Homayoun Ershadi who performed the lead character in “Taste of Cherry,” Honaronline reported on Wednesday.

Abbas Kiarostami often made sketch films while conceptualizing his features. In this one for “Taste of Cherry,” the director, along with his son Bahman, acts out some of the parts, considers the film’s structure and dialogue, and plans some shots.

Bahman Kiarostami, 45, is a documentary film director, editor and cinematographer. Most of his documentaries focus on valuing and legitimizing processes in art but also cover the visible yet obscured and unnoticed details that define Iran’s post-revolutionary visual culture. His films have been shown at numerous international film festivals and won some awards as well. 

“Taste of Cherry” is a 1997 Iranian minimalist drama film written, produced, edited, and directed by Abbas Kiarostami, and starring Homayoun Ershadi as a middle-aged Tehran man, who drives through a city suburb, in search of someone willing to carry out the task of burying him after he commits suicide. The film won the Palme d'Or at the 1997 Cannes Film Festival.

Since the film's release, multiple other critics have also declared it a masterpiece; in the British Film Institute's 2012 Sight & Sound poll, six critics and two directors named it one of the 10 best films ever made. It was also named the 9th best film of the 90s by Slant Magazine. 

Abbas Kiarostami (1940-2016) was an Iranian film director, screenwriter, poet, photographer, and film producer. An active filmmaker from 1970, Kiarostami had been involved in the production of over 40 films, including shorts and documentaries. Kiarostami attained critical acclaim for directing “Close-Up” (1990), “The Wind Will Carry Us” (1999), and “Taste of Cherry” (1997). In later works, “Certified Copy” (2010) and “Like Someone in Love” (2012), he filmed for the first time outside Iran: in Italy and Japan, respectively.

Kiarostami was part of a generation of filmmakers in the Iranian New Wave, a Persian cinema movement that started in the late 1960s and emphasized the use of poetic dialogue and allegorical storytelling dealing with political and philosophical issues.

Kiarostami is known for his use of Persian poetry in the dialogue, titles, and themes of his films. His films also contain a notable degree of ambiguity, an unusual mixture of simplicity and complexity, and often a mix of fictional and documentary elements. The concepts of change and continuity, in addition to the themes of life and death, play a major role in Kiarostami's works.

SS/SAB