Unpublished words of Iran acclaimed filmmaker

Late, great Iranian director, Abbas Kiarostami, had expressed his desire to produce a film with a screenplay based on the chapter ‘Earthquake’ in the Quran.

According to ‘Another Cinema; few articles and an interview with Abbas Kiarostami on his cinema’, a book unveiled on April 23, Kiarostami had made the comment in response to questions of the French Philosopher, Jean Luc Nancy, who had conducted the interview.

Kiarostami first recited the chapter, as follows:

In the name of God, the Gracious, the Merciful.

1. When the earth is shaken with its quake.

2. And the earth brings out its loads.

3. And man says, “What is the matter with it?”

4. On that Day, it will tell its tales.

5. For your Lord will have inspired it.

6. On that Day, the people will emerge in droves, to be shown their works.

7. Whoever has done an atom's weight of good will see it.

8. And whoever has done an atom's weight of evil will see it.

He then went on to say that the chapter was one of the nicest in Quran, to him, and that he had thought for over 20 years about producing a movie based on that, saying it was really impressive to him when he read about the chapter in the philosopher’s writings.

In one of his books, Nancy had pointed to a scene in Kiarostami’s movie ‘Life and Nothing More’, in which quake-hit people watch a football match, and asks whether Hatamkia had been inspired by verses in chapters 98 and 99 of the Quran.

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