14.11.24, 20:30, Milestones: Early Kiarostami Shorts

Sabzian, in collaboration with Cinema RITCS and KASKcinema, presents a selection of early short films by Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami (1940-2016). The programme includes The Bread and Alley (1970), Recess (1972), Two Solutions for One Problem (1975), So Can I (1975), The Colours (1976) and Orderly or Disorderly (1981). Kiarostami made these educational films for Kanoon, the then ‘Centre for the Intellectual Development of Children and Adolescents’ in Tehran.

The short films in this programme are aimed at children and deal with simple issues from the school world. For example, Orderly or Disorderly shows how things at school can be orderly or chaotic, The Colours explores the world of colours, and Two Solutions for One Problem examines the effects of different behaviour at school. As films, they never pretend to be outside the world of children, but rather engage with it. The playful approach to didactic form in Kiarostami's early work helps lay the foundations for what he would later call ‘an unfinished cinema’: ‘A half-created cinema that becomes completed by the audience's creative mind, leading to hundreds of films’.

This screening will be introduced by filmmaker Gerard-Jan Claes.