Vesoul Asian event to honor Kiarostami

The 25th edition of the Vesoul International Film Festival of Asian Cinema in France has set to honor late-great director Abbas Kiarostami with screening his ‘Taste of Cherry’.

The movie will be screened at a section titled ‘25th Anniversary Wild Card’ along with ‘The Surrogate Woman’ (1986) by Im Kwon-taek and ‘The Housemaid’ (1960) by Kim Ki-young from South Korea, ‘The Big City’ (1963) by Satyajit Ray from India, ‘Grave of the Fireflies’ (1989) by Takahata Isao from Japan, ‘The Adopted Son’ (1998) by Aktan Arym Kubat from Kyrgyzstan, as well as ‘Insiang’ (1976) by Lino Brocka from the Philippines.

‘Taste of Cherry’ tells the story of a man about fifty who drives out of town on the afternoon of a public holiday. He is looking for someone who might be in need of money to carry out a rather special mission.

During his quest, in suburban Tehran, he meets a soldier, a theology student, a pious man, and a museum guard, who are more or less on the edge of society. Each will react differently to his proposal.

The Vesoul event has some other Iranian titles on schedule, including ‘Rona Azim's Mother’ by Jamshid Mahmoudi, ‘African Violet’ by Mona Zandi-Haqiqi, ‘About Elly’ by Asghar Farhadi, and ‘Leila’ by Dariush Mehrjouee.

Kiarostami has won many awards, including the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 1997 for ‘Taste of Cherry’.

He is mostly known as a screenwriter, film editor, art director and producer as well as a poet, photographer, painter, illustrator, and graphic designer.

Launched in 1995, the Vesoul International Film Festival of Asian Cinema (Festival international des cinémas d'Asie) is an annual special-interest film festival focusing on the cinemas of Asia.

The 25th edition of the festival has been slated for February 5-12, 2019, in Vesoul, France.

MG/MG