All,

This month, at Catamount Arts, I - your friendly neighborhood film doctor - will be hosting a special 3 film series over the next three Wednesdays. At 6 pm on the 7th, 14th, and 21st we will be offering free screenings of Abbas Kiarostami's Koker Trilogy.

If you know Kiarostami, you know - and I'll see you there! If you don't know him and you have an interest in film, this is a great introduction! One of the greats of modern cinema, Abbas Kiarostami was a key figure in the emergence of Iranian cinema on the national stage in the 80's and 90's. This month we will be screening: "Where is the Friend's House?" (1987) on the 7th; "And Life Goes On" (1992) on the 14th; and "Through the Olive Trees" (1994) on the 21st. Each of the films stands on their own, so if you can't make it to some, don't let that stop you from attending the others. But if you can make all three, they fit together and work off each other in a really interesting way. You see, instead of a trilogy that tells a story over three parts, this is a trilogy that takes us deeper and deeper into the reality that exists behind a fictional film. I'll explain more next week.

This week's film is "Where is the Friend's House?", which is one of Kiarostami's most immediately accessible films and a great place to start in exploring his oeuvre. A rather straightforward tale of a quest in the region of Koker, a village in rural northern Iran, with a title that Kiarostami took from his favorite modern Persian poet, it follows a boy trying to find his classmate's house to return a notebook, guided and gaining insights into his world and the people in in on the way. It also showcases many of the qualities associated with Kiarostami's work: it is child-centered; uses amateur actors; is deeply invested in landscapes and locations; and is a deceptively simple story that slowly acquires an air of allegory.

And I know you're far too sophisticated to care about this, but it also clocks in at a brisk 83 minutes - so if you hate it, it will be over soon. And you'll be sure to be home by an entirely reasonable hour.

See you there!
Dr. Pete