Taiwanese film festival honors Abbas Kiarostami

The Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival (2017 TGHFF) in Taiwan has honored late Iranian mega director Abbas Kiarostami.

The Taiwanese event paid tribute to Kiarostami by screening ‘24 Frames’ and ‘Take Me Home’, both directed by Kiarostami, as well as ‘76 Minutes and 15 Seconds with Abbas Kiarostami’ by Seifollah Samadian in the Master Class section.

The 114-minute ‘24 Frames’ is an experimental project by Kiarostami in the last three years of his life. It is a collection of 24 four-and-a-half-minute films inspired by still images, including paintings and photographs.

It went on the Indian screen on November 7 and 11 in Shin Kong Cinemas 2 as well as November 13 in Vie Show Taipei Sun 1.

In the 16-minute ‘Take Me Home’, Kiarostami takes his camera to south of Italy and shows a beautiful and playful video of alleys and stairs there. Kiarostami's last short film masks a carefully constructed narrative that highlights the deceptive nature of his filmmaking and his deft manipulation of time and space.

The short film went on the Indian screen on November 12 and 15 in Shin Kong Cinemas 2 as well as November 18 at 'in89 Digital Cinemax 2'.

In ‘76 Minutes and 15 Seconds with Abbas Kiarostami’, photographer Seifollah Samadian, a longtime colleague of Kiarostami, turns years of behind-the-scenes footage shot during their close creative partnership into a beautiful, understated and inspiring tribute to the cinema guru, by inviting you to watch, without commentary, Kiarostami at work.

Launched in 1980 as a non-competitive showcase, the TGHFF is the largest film festival in Taiwan. It aims at introducing prominent cinema from around the world, in order to promote cinema as an art form and to enhance intercultural understanding through cinema.

The 2017 edition of the TGHFF was held on November 3-24, 2017.

Kiarostami has won many awards including the Palme d'Or he snatched at the Cannes Festival in 1997 for his film ‘Taste of Cherry’.

The late writer-director has been widely hailed as a pioneer of the Iranian New Wave.

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 also honored at this year’s Oscars ceremony in Los Angeles.

MG/MF