Where Is The Friend’s Home? (1987)

After seeing one or two Abbas Kiarostami directed films, friends had recommended the Koker Trilogy – not an official trilogy but three films shot in the Iranian village of Koker. Where Is The Friend’s Home? (1987; Khane-ye dust kojast) was added to Mubi recently and I was very keen to see it. Whenever I see […]

Close-Up (1990)

What a magic trick this movie is. An odd courtroom case is filmed by the camera, the person charged is studied in the frame, everyday people are asked to become actors and recreate what they experienced, and the result offers a complexity of meanings and readings, but also depending on your viewing experience, it also […]

3 Faces (2018)

3 Faces (2018) opens with footage recorded on a smartphone of a young girl, Marziyeh (Marziyeh Rezaei), who pleads for help from an actor, Behnaz Jafari, to support her dreams of wanting to become an actor herself and studying at a conservatory, all of which is strictly denied by her village in the face of […]

Taste Of Cherry (1997)

One night, I could not get to sleep and was feeling unwell. Best advice usually is to get out of bed and do something else in another room until you feel tired. I felt like starting to watch something and as soon as I felt sleepy, I’d finish it the next day. I don’t mind […]

Under The Shadow (2016)

Another spooky movie for Halloween! Directed by Babak Anvari and based upon his childhood memories of the Tehran bombings, Under The Shadow (2016) works as a solid drama that escalates into spookiness. It’s set during the Iraq-Iran conflict of the 1980s, focusing on a family living in Tehran during regular bombings, with details such as […]