Berlinale to review ‘Where Is the Friend's Home?’

Abbas Kiarostami’s movie ‘Where Is the Friend's Home?’ has been selected to go on screen at the Berlin Film Festival in Germany.

The late director’s popular film will be screened at the Retrospective section of this year’s edition of the event.

The title is a 1987 Iranian drama film directed and written by Kiarostami.

Derived from a poem by Sohrab Sepehri, it is considered the first installment in Kiarostami’s Koker trilogy, followed by ‘Life, and Nothing More’ and ‘Through the Olive Trees’, all of which take place in Koker, Iran.

‘Where is the Friend’s Home?’ tells a deceptively simple account of a conscientious schoolboy's quest to return his friend's notebook in a neighboring village, since, should his friend fail to hand it in the next day, it is likely he will get expelled.

Hence, this film has been seen as a metaphor for the sense of civil duty, about loyalty and everyday heroics. The traditional beliefs of Iranian rural people are also depicted.

The film is among the top ten in the BFI list of the 50 films you should see by the age of 14.

The Berlin International Film Festival is “one of the largest public film festivals in the world, attracting tens of thousands of visitors from around the globe each year”, the website of the event reads.

The 73rd edition of the event is scheduled for February 16-26, 2023.

FM/MM