TEHRAN- The 1987 Iranian film “Where Is the Friend’s House?” by the late acclaimed filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami will be screened at the 39th Tokyo International Film Festival in Japan as part of a special program celebrating films cherished by legendary Japanese director Akira Kurosawa.
Produced by the Institute for the Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults (Kanoon), the film is scheduled to screen on October 26 at TOHO Cinemas Chanter in Tokyo, according to Kanoon’s public relations and international affairs department.
The film will be presented alongside three other works in the program “Akira Kurosawa’s Favorite Films”: Charlie Chaplin’s “The Circus” (1928), and Kurosawa’s own films “Sanshiro Sugata” (1943) and “Ikiru” (1952).
The special program brings together works associated with Kurosawa’s cinematic legacy, placing Kiarostami’s landmark Iranian film in conversation with major works from the history of world cinema.
“Where Is the Friend’s House?” follows Ahmad, a schoolboy who discovers that he has accidentally taken home his classmate’s notebook. Determined to return it before his friend faces punishment for failing to complete his homework, Ahmad sets out to find the boy’s house in a neighboring village. His search becomes a journey through rural Iranian life, exploring childhood, responsibility, kindness and the challenges children encounter in a world governed by adult rules.
With its understated storytelling, naturalistic performances and close attention to everyday life, the film became one of the defining works of Kiarostami’s career and helped introduce Iranian cinema to wider international audiences. It also established themes that would recur throughout the director’s work, including the moral complexity of ordinary decisions and the relationship between children and adults.
The film has won several awards since its release, including the Bronze Leopard at the Locarno International Film Festival in Switzerland and the Critics’ Prize at the Sao Paulo International Film Festival, and the Pasinetti Award at the Venice Film Festival.
“Where Is the Friend’s House?” is one of Kiarostami’s landmark works and the first installment of his Koker trilogy, which also includes “And Life Goes On” (1992) and “Through the Olive Trees” (1994).
The film has been screened at numerous international film festivals and cinematheques over the decades and continues to feature in retrospectives and programs dedicated to world cinema.
Kiarostami was a film director, screenwriter, poet, photographer, and film producer. An active filmmaker from 1970, he was involved in the production of over 40 films, including shorts and documentaries. He attained critical acclaim for directing “Close-Up” (1990), “The Wind Will Carry Us” (1999), and “Taste of Cherry” (1997). In later works, “Certified Copy” (2010) and “Like Someone in Love” (2012), he filmed for the first time outside Iran: in Italy and Japan, respectively.
He was part of a generation of filmmakers in the Iranian New Wave, a Persian cinema movement that started in the late 1960s and emphasized the use of poetic dialogue and allegorical storytelling dealing with philosophical issues. He is known for his use of Persian poetry in the dialogue, titles, and themes of his films. His films also contain a notable degree of ambiguity, an unusual mixture of simplicity and complexity, and often a mix of fictional and documentary elements. The concepts of change and continuity, in addition to the themes of life and death, play a major role in Kiarostami’s works.
Kiarostami, the winner of the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 1997 for his “Taste of Cherry”, died of cancer on July 5, 2016 at the age of 76.
The screening in Tokyo offers another opportunity for international audiences, including younger generations of filmgoers, to discover Kiarostami’s work and revisit a film that remains an enduring reference point in Iranian cinema.
The 39th Tokyo International Film Festival will run from October 26 to November 4 under the theme “Connecting — Cinema Connects Us to the World Beyond.” The festival will present more than 200 films across its various sections, with screenings and related events taking place in Tokyo’s Hibiya, Yurakucho, Marunouchi and Ginza areas.
Photo: A scene from Abbas Kiarostami’s “Where Is the Friend’s House?”
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