Yesterday, October 14, the Italian Embassy in Teheran hosted a multimedia tribute in memory of Abbas Kiarostami, icon of Iranian cinema. The cultural event consisted of a photographic exhibition, a showing of two video-documentaries on the locations that inspired Kiarostami, and a classical music performance.
In his remarks, the Italian Ambassador, Giuseppe Perrone, highlighted the historical and artistic significance of Kiarostami, his innovative, unmistakable style, his close ties to Italy, where the Iranian director drew much of his inspiration from the historical and artistic model of neorealism and the Italian art films of the postwar period.
The photographic exhibition, set up in the garden of the Italian Residence, included 21 photographs by 16 Iranian and international photographers, including the Italian Francesco Romero, which were presented at the second edition of the International “5 Photo Award” Festival, inspired by the documentary “Five” by Kiarostami (2003), filmed along the shores of the Caspian Sea.
There were also showings of two filmed pieces entitled “Single Arrow’s Tree” and “In Search of Lost Time” by Mehdi Shadizadeh, relative to the sites that inspired the Iranian director, and a concert for piano and violin featuring the duo Elnaz Moshtaghi and Behzad Jafarian who, with their minimalist notes, were able to recreate in music the neorealist essence of Kiarostami’s cinema.
In the past weeks, the Italian Embassy in Teheran also showed Kiarostami’s movie “Copia Conforme” from 2010, part of which was filmed in Tuscany, followed by a discussion between filmmakers and critics.
