Through the Olive Trees

Zire darakhatan zeyton / Quer durch den Olivenhain Iran 1994 | Abbas Kiarostami | vostDE+EN | 103’ | 35mm | Cast : Hossein Rezai, Farhad Kheradmand, Mohamad Ali Keshavarz > Nominee Best Foreign Language Film, Oscars 1995

Trouble arises on the set of Abbas Kiarostami’s And Life Goes On when the romantic misfortune of one of the actors – a young man who pines for the woman cast as his wife, even though, in real life, she will have nothing to do with him – leaves the director caught in the middle.

« Kiarostami blends fiction with reality to present cinema as a reflection of life. You realize that there is nothing more precious and beautiful than life itself. Kiarostami injects meaning behind small gestures of everyday life. » (rogerebert.com)

« Kiarostami takes meta­narrative gamesmanship to masterful new heights in the final instalment of The Koker Trilogy. An ineffably lovely, gentle human comedy steeped in the folkways of Iranian village life, Through the Olive Trees peels away layer after layer of artifice as it investigates the elusive, alchemical relationship between cinema and reality. » (Criterion)