Abbas Kiarostami and Víctor Erice were born a week apart, on June 1940, one in Iran the other in Spain. Kiarostami studied drawing, and film advertisement before moving to institutional feature films relative to education for the Kanun Institute (created by the Former Empress of Iran, Shahbanou Farah). Erice however has a more classical background in Cinema, graduating from Cinema School; he was an avid meditative movie buff who considers screen writing as an independent creative form in itself. Both also went through a radical change in the way they conceived their cinematic work and philosophy of life after major historical changes in their respective country. This change occurred for Victor Erice, with the end of Franco’s reign and the establishment of democracy under King Juan Carlos, while for Kiarostami it was with fall of the Shah of Iran’s regime and the establishment of the Islamic Republic that imposed this change of path. However from a non historical and non-national point of view both are aware of belonging to the same film generation, which in the words of Kiarostami was an era “where Cinema put itself to the service of means, and not the contrary.” Victor Erice speaks of “audiovisual inflation and a pollution of images.” Both directors will therefore try to restore the initial concept of filmmaking trying to capture the reality of the World and its inhabitants. Both will also refuse to submit themselves to financial dictates of the movie market. They try and confront reality, natural sets and landscapes and non professional actors. They often even leave the opportunities of their script open to improvisations imposed on them naturally during shooting. However both will also try not to be hostage to the natural realism that they are trying to capture.

 

To discover and understand their Art, the French Centre Pompidou in Paris is holding a retrospective of their work and influences starting on Sept 23^rd 2007-January 7^th 2008. Kiarostami is also currently shooting a film with French Star Juliette Binoche entitled Certified Copy aka Copie Conforme

 

VIVE LE CINEMA!

 

Authors Notes:

See Full Program of Expo on Official Website

 

Photo 1: Centre Pompidou Exhibit

Photo 2: Les Cahiers du Cinéma Coverage of this Exhibition

Photo 3: PersianMirror.com Editor in Chief Shabnam Rezaei taking a picture with director Abbas Kiarostami during his art exhibition in New York. Shabnam is also producer of Babak and Friends a First Norooz.