‘Sohanak’ on Abbas Kiarostami opens Image of Year Celebration

The 17th edition of the Image of the Year Celebration has been opened with screening ‘Sohanak’ depicting Abbas Kiarostami.

The celebration, featuring photos, posters and cartoons as well as screening some films, was inaugurated on February 22 at the Iranian Artists Forum (IAF) in Tehran.

‘Sohanak’ is a film that depicts Abbas Kiarostami playing the role of the leading character of his movie ‘Taste of Cherry’ on a pilot project.

Bahman Kiarostami, son of Abbas Kiarostami, wrote in a statement read before the screening by the director of the celebration Seifollah Samadian.

“When my father was working on the main idea of the film, he made a video maquette of the film instead of writing a screenplay and played the role of Mr. Badiee in a car traveling in Sohanak, a village near Tehran,” Bahman stated.

Samadian expressed his contentment over Bahman’s submission of the film to this edition of the celebration.

“We should try our best to help this film find its real position,” Samadian added.

Samadian also noted that a new section named “40 Years Tehran”, which reviews a lineup of top films made in Tehran or about Tehran during the past 40 years, has been added to this edition of the celebration.

Filmmaker Rakhshan Bani-Etemad, actor Habib Rezaee and photographer Roshan Norouzi were among the famous celebrities attending the opening ceremony.

The program will honor the winners on March 13, 2020.

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