Conversations With Kiarostami

Before his death in 2016, Abbas Kiarostami wrote or directed more than thirty films in a career that mirrored Iranian cinema's rise as an international force. His 1997 feature Taste of Cherry made him the first Iranian filmmaker to win the Palme d'Or at Cannes. Critics' polls continue to place Close-Up (1990) and Through the Olive Trees (1994) among the masterpieces of world cinema. Yet Kiarostami's naturalistic impulses and winding complexity made him one of the most divisive--if influential--filmmakers of his time. In this expanded second edition, award-winning Iranian filmmaker Mehrnaz Saeed-Vafa and film critic Jonathan Rosenbaum renew their illuminating cross-cultural dialogue on Kiarostami's work. The pair chart the filmmaker's late-in-life turn toward art galleries, museums, still photography, and installations. They also bring their distinct but complementary perspectives to a new conversation on the experimental film Shirin. Finally, Rosenbaum offers an essay on watching Kiarostami at home while Saeed-Vafa conducts a deeply personal interview with the director on his career and his final feature, Like Someone in Love.

Over the past two decades, Abbas Kiarostami - the Iranian film director of Where is the Friend's House?, Life and Nothing More, Through the Olive Trees, Close Up, A Taste of Cherry, The Wind Will Carry Us, Ten, Shirin, Certified Copy and Like Someone in Love - has appeared regularly at festivals and on campuses, where he has worked closely for several days with young filmmakers, shepherding them and their projects, sending them out with cameras, then screening and discussing the results. Pieced together from notes made over a period of nearly ten years at several of these workshops, Lessons with Kiarostami is a distillation of Kiarostami's filmmaking techniques and working methods, and most importantly a series of practical guideposts for aspiring filmmakers.

The New Iranian Cinema is considered by many to be the most fascinating cultural phenomenon produced within the Islamic Republic of Iran. Containing twelve first-hand interviews with the most renowned film-makers living and working in contemporary Iran, this book provides insights into film-making within a society often at odds with its rulers. Reflecting upon the 1979 revolution and its influence on their work, as well as the effect of their films on Iranian audiences, film-makers such as Abbas Kiarostami and Jafar Panahi highlight the key issues surrounding the reception of Iranian cinema in the West and also its role in the development of Iran's global image. Through these conversations Shiva Rahbaran reveals that the seeds of the New Iranian Cinema were sown long before the revolution, and that Iranian film-makers gave rise to a cinema which became a global phenomenon despite censorship, sanctions and political isolation.

Literary Nonfiction. Cinema Studies. Revised 3rd Edition. Devotional Cinema offers an exploration into the language of film, reprised from a lecture on religion and cinema delivered at Princeton University. The new edition includes additions and changes related to the author's understanding of Carl Theodor Dreyer's The Passion of Joan of Arc as well as other smaller clarifications. Dorsky has been making and exhibiting films within the avant-garde tradition since 1964.

"The Iranian Abbas Kiarostami burst onto the international film scene in the early 1990s and - as demonstrated by the many major prizes he has won - is now widely regarded as one of the most distinctive and talented modern-day directors. His major features - including Through the Olive Trees (1994), Taste of Cherry (1997) and The Wind Will Carry Us (1999) - are relatively modest in scale, contemplative and humanist in tone. In 2002, with 10, Kiarostami broke new ground, fixing one or two digital cameras on a car's dashboard to film ten conversations between the driver (Mania Akbari) and her various passengers. The results are astonishing: though formally rigorous, even austere, and documentary-like in its style, 10 succeeds both as emotionally affecting human drama and as a critical analysis of everyday life in today's Tehran. In this study, Geoff Andrew looks at 10 within the context of Kiarostami's career, of Iranian cinema's recent renaissance, and of international film culture. Drawing on a number of detailed interviews he conducted with both Kiarostami and his lead actress, Andrew sheds light on the unusual methods used in making the film, on its political relevance, and on its remarkably subtle aesthetic. He also argues that 10 was an important turning-point in the career of a film-maker who is not only one of contemporary cinema's most accomplished practitioners but also one of its most radical experimentalists."--Bloomsbury Publishing.

"A comparative look at the work of Chinese filmmaker Jia Zhangke by celebrated critic Jean Michel Frodon. Includes an extensive interview with Jia, essays on each of his films, conversations with his main collaborators, and a selection of his own writings. "--Page 4 of cover.

"The two demonstrate a profound shared passion, a way of literally being one with a medium and speaking about it with a dazzling lyricism interspersed with dryly ironic remarks, fueled by a conviction that inspires them to traverse history. Their point of intersection is obvious. Duras, a writer, is also a filmmaker, and Godard, a filmmaker, has maintained a distinctive relationship with literature, writing and speech."--Cyril Béghin, back cover.

Mani Ratnam’s Nayakan is among Time’s ‘100 Best Movies Ever’; and Roja launched A.R. Rahman. This book, unique to Indian cinema, illuminates the genius of the man behind these and eighteen other masterly films. For the first time ever, Mani Ratnam opens up here, to Baradwaj Rangan, about his art, as well as his life before films. In these freewheeling conversations—candid, witty, pensive, and sometimes combative—many aspects of his films are explored. Ratnam elaborates in a personal vein on his choice of themes, from the knottiness in urban relationships (Agni Natchatiram) to the rents in the national fabric (Bombay); his directing of children (Anjali); his artful use of songs; his innovative use of lighting; as also his making of films in Hindi and other languages. There are fond recollections of collaborations with stalwarts like Balu Mahendra, P.C. Sreeram, Thotta Tharrani and Gulzar, among many others. And delectable behind-the-scenes stories—from the contrasting working styles of the legendary composer Ilaiyaraaja and Rahman to the unexpected dimensions Kamal Haasan brought to the filming of Nayakan to what Raavan was like when originally conceived. In short, like Mani Ratnam’s films, Conversations surprises, entertains and stimulates. With Rangan’s personal and impassioned introduction setting the Tamil and national context of the films, and with posters, script pages and numerous stills, this book is a sumptuous treat for serious lovers of cinema as well as the casual moviegoer looking for a peek behind the process.