BOOK:Abbas Kiarostami,Cantz Publications

Filmmaker, photographer and poet, Abbas Kiarostami in Tehran, is known since the early ‘90s as one of the most important director of contemporary cinema. Palme d’Or at Cannes in 1997 for “Taste of Cherry”, two years later he received the Grand Special Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival for “The Wind Will Carry Us”. The book “Abbas Kiarostami: Stille und bewegte Bilder” by Cantz Publications explores the correlation between photographic and filmic vision, between still and moving images. His photos have been exhibited worldwide, including London, Victoria & Albert Museum and New York, MoMA, the Centre Pompidou in Paris and in five Chinese cities. This book by Cantz Publications explores the correlation between photographic and filmic vision, between still and moving images. Whereas Kiarostami’s films contain haunting images of the human experience, he trains his photographic eye on untouched landscapes, often taking years to develop the images into series such as “Snow White” (1978–2004). For that series Abbas Kiarostami “Rain and Wind” (2007), said “I packed my bag without forgetting my camera and digital video camera. The rain keeps falling from yesterday dotted by lightening, this will not change my decision”. Inside the car, the Iranian filmmaker takes shots of urban and rural landscapes. This series of pictures shows us throughout the flowing of rain on the windscreen, high silhouettes of soaked trees, and the trembling lights of cars or a yellow wall of the street side, the colored images in which greys and blacks predominate look like paintings.-Dimitris Lempesis