Docs on Koker Trilogy flying over VOD

An Iranian video-on-demand (VOD) service has released three documentaries on Abbas Kiarostami’s The Koker Trilogy.

Iranian documentarian Hamideh Sharifrad released her documentaries on The Koker Trilogy on Hashure, an Iranian VOD platform for documentary works, Iran’s Documentary and Experimental Film Center (DEFC) announced on Tuesday.

The three documentaries which will be available on the portal until May 6 for free are ‘An Interview with Abbas Kiarostami’, ‘Near the Tree’, and ‘Beyond the Olive Trees’.

Sharifrad said “The documentaries are about Kiarostami’s three acclaimed movies and I always desired that those interested in Kiarostami and his films would have an opportunity to gain more information about his works”.

“That is why I decided to release the three documentaries for interested individuals during the home quarantine,” she also noted.

The documentarian added “I got to know Mr. Kiarostami in 2002 when I registered in courses at the Iranian Youth Cinema Society and began to collaborate with him. I carried out an interview about all his works, and my main goal was to feature his words on his own films”.

“I actually intended to make a film so that those interested in the cinema of Kiarostami could find more about his method of filmmaking through his voice on his own films, and the idea was liked and welcomed by Kiarostami himself,” she also explained.

Sharifrad said Kiarostami’s son, Bahman, had recorded some very good images while his father was filming “Through the Olive Trees” and “Taste of Cherry”, and those photos were very useful for her while she was making “Beyond the Olive Trees”.

“Wherever Kiarostami went for filmmaking I accompanied him or even went alone to the locations and did interviews with about 400 individuals who collaborated with Kiarostami in his projects,” she concluded.

Set in the rural northern-Iranian town of Koker, Kiarostami’s ‘Where Is the Friend’s House?’, ‘And Life Goes On’ and ‘Through the Olive Trees’ are known as The Koker Trilogy.

Abbas 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.

The veteran Iranian filmmaker who passed away on July 4, 2016, following a heart attack at the age of 76, was honored at more than 300 film events around the world.

MG/MG