Abbas Kiarostami

On the search for motifs and sites the Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami embarks on journeys throughout Iran. From his home town Tehran, he travels north in the direction of the Caspian Sea, sometimes to Kurdistan near the Iraqi border. In his work Kiarosami adjusts to the situation which he finds in nature. It provides him with various possibilities, defines the variations of images, which arise out of the change in seasons, the change and quality of light. The persons involved move within this nature as on a stage, constituting a setting for the action which results in the static quality through minute long, uncut panoramic sequences. Kiarostami´s photographs are complete works in themselves, neither stills nor strict storyboards of his films, they function through similar structuring elements, remaining autonomous nonetheless. They depict various remote and spiritually loaded places - a cohesive image past exhibitions of the Iranian landscape. The plot partially takes place outside the viewer´s visual field, beyond the camera´s gaze. The off introduces an additional space in which Kiarostami´s cinema is just as naturally operating as it is in the visible.

Abbas Kiarostami