Directed by Abbas Kiarostami • 1974 • Iran
Starring Hassan Darabi, Pare Gol Atashjameh
Abbas Kiarostami’s first feature focuses on a boy in a provincial city so avid to get to Tehran to see a soccer match that he’ll lie to adults and cheat other kids. A quest film that’s also a study of youthful obsession, it’s filmed in edgy black and white with a quiet energy that matches its hero’s. THE TRAVELER has an acridly ironic ending and one of the best performances by a child in Kiarostami’s early work.
Five years after CLOSE-UP, Mahmoud Chokrollahi made this intimate portrait of the film’s principal figure, Hossein Sabzian, which consists of conversations and interviews with Sabzian and people who know him. “CLOSE-UP” LONG SHOT is a remarkable account of the effect Abbas Kiarostami’s film had o...
In this 2009 video interview, shot in Marrakech while Abbas Kiarostami was president of the Marrakech Film Festival jury, the director discusses CLOSE-UP and the impact it had on his career.
