Country:Iran

Director:Abbas Kiarostami

Program:Parralel Pathways

Summary:

Abbas Kiarostami took the real people involved in a headline incident and restaged the circumstances with them up to the point where the film collides with actual documentary reality. This startling trope of intermingled fiction and documentary elements is a groundbreaking provocation that initiated the meta-reality cinema that increasingly came into vogue in Iran. Pretending to be famous director Mohsen Makhmalbaf making his next movie, Ali Sabzian enters a well-to-do family in Teheran with the understanding that he will make a film with them. At the trial the actual Makhmalbaf makes his appearance and the layers of film reality come into bold relief and ironically a film did get made!