Abbas Kiarostami (1940-2016) was the most influential Iranian filmmaker to emerge following that country's 1979 political revolution. As a humanist filmmaker his reach was global, and his work was championed by fellow directors Akira Kurosawa, Walter Salles, Ermanno Olmi, and Víctor Erice, among others. Kurosawa said, "Words cannot describe my feelings about his films . . . When Satyajit Ray passed on I was very depressed. But after seeing Kiarostami's films I thank God for giving us just the right person to take his place."
At university, Kiarostami majored in painting and graphic design, and during the early part of his career he illustrated children's books, designed credit sequences for films, and made television commercials. By 1970, he began directing his own films, developing a style shaped by a minimalist aesthetic and improvisational techniques as well as a distinctive blend of fiction and documentary. Anchored in the art of simplicity, Kiarostami's cinema has a charming spontaneity, what Walter Salles called an "immediacy and truth . . . as if nothing is truly staged." Yet the role of the filmmaker is often a palpable presence in the films, occasionally observing the action via wide-angle shots that show cause and effect in a single, exquisite long take. Probing the meaning of existence, isolation, solidarity, and death, Kiarostami offers a poetic portrayal of life as it is.
This near-comprehensive retrospective will be complemented by In Focus: Abbas Kiarostami, a lecture-screening series at BAMPFA this fall (schedule to be announced).
Susan Oxtoby, Senior Film Curator
show less
At university, Kiarostami majored in painting and graphic design, and during the early part of his career he illustrated children's books, designed credit sequences for films, and made television commercials. By 1970, he began directing his own films, developing a style shaped by a minimalist aesthetic and improvisational techniques as well as a distinctive blend of fiction and documentary. Anchored in the art of simplicity, Kiarostami's cinema has a charming spontaneity, what Walter Salles called an "immediacy and truth . . . as if nothing is truly staged." Yet the role of the filmmaker is often a palpable presence in the films, occasionally observing the action via wide-angle shots that show cause and effect in a single, exquisite long take. Probing the meaning of existence, isolation, solidarity, and death, Kiarostami offers a poetic portrayal of life as it is.
This near-comprehensive retrospective will be complemented by In Focus: Abbas Kiarostami, a lecture-screening series at BAMPFA this fall (schedule to be announced).
Susan Oxtoby, Senior Film Curator
Abbas Kiarostami (1940-2016) was the most influential Iranian filmmaker to emerge following that country's 1979 political revolution. As a humanist filmmaker his reach was global, and his work was championed by fellow directors Akira Kurosawa, Walter Salles, Ermanno Olmi, and Víctor Erice, among others. Kurosawa said, "Words cannot describe my feelings about his films . . . When Satyajit Ray passed on I was very depressed. But after seeing Kiarostami's films I thank God for giving us just the right person to take his place."
At university, Kiarostami majored in painting and graphic design, and during the early part of his career he illustrated children's books, designed credit sequences for films, and made television commercials. By 1970, he began directing his own films, developing a style shaped by a minimalist aesthetic and improvisational techniques as well as a distinctive blend of fiction and documentary. Anchored in the art of simplicity, Kiarostami's cinema has a charming spontaneity, what Walter Salles called an "immediacy and truth . . . as if nothing is truly staged." Yet the role of the filmmaker is often a palpable presence in the films, occasionally observing the action via wide-angle shots that show cause and effect in a single, exquisite long take. Probing the meaning of existence, isolation, solidarity, and death, Kiarostami offers a poetic portrayal of life as it is.
This near-comprehensive retrospective will be complemented by In Focus: Abbas Kiarostami, a lecture-screening series at BAMPFA this fall (schedule to be announced).
Susan Oxtoby, Senior Film Curator
read more
At university, Kiarostami majored in painting and graphic design, and during the early part of his career he illustrated children's books, designed credit sequences for films, and made television commercials. By 1970, he began directing his own films, developing a style shaped by a minimalist aesthetic and improvisational techniques as well as a distinctive blend of fiction and documentary. Anchored in the art of simplicity, Kiarostami's cinema has a charming spontaneity, what Walter Salles called an "immediacy and truth . . . as if nothing is truly staged." Yet the role of the filmmaker is often a palpable presence in the films, occasionally observing the action via wide-angle shots that show cause and effect in a single, exquisite long take. Probing the meaning of existence, isolation, solidarity, and death, Kiarostami offers a poetic portrayal of life as it is.
This near-comprehensive retrospective will be complemented by In Focus: Abbas Kiarostami, a lecture-screening series at BAMPFA this fall (schedule to be announced).
Susan Oxtoby, Senior Film Curator
show less
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Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA)
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