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Download audioIn recent decades Iranian cinema has achieved a global reputation for its poetic qualities,mystical thoughts and novel experimentation in form and style, creating a unique film aesthetic of its own. Long-established Iranian filmmakers such as Abbas Kiarostami, Dariush Mehrjui, Amir Naderi, and Bahram Beyzai, and more recent ones including Mohsen Makhmalbaf, Jafar Panahi, and Bahman Ghobadi, are now screened regularly all over the world at prominent film festivals and in commercial cinemas, their work debated, analyzed and studied by critics, academics and students. Kiarostami's film Shirin, meanwhile, stands apart from this large body of work. In this, perhaps his most under-appreciated film, Kiarostami has attempted something unique and unprecedented: to adapt a masterpiece of classical Persian poetry from the twelfth century to the screen. Not surprisingly, it has never been nominated for an award in any film festival. This session Bardia Saadi-nejad will talk about Abbas Kiarostami's Cinema and his last film, Shirin.
