Poetic storytelling about common Iranians

Shanghai Art Film Federation is hosting a retrospective exhibition of Iranian film master Abbas Kiarostami (1940-2016), which runs until September 5 at the Majestic Theater and Grand Cinema.

The exhibition features 22 of Kiarostami's short and feature films – all digitally restored – highlighting his distinctive cinematography and poetic storytelling.

One of the leading figures in the Iranian New Wave of the late 1960s and early 1970s, Kiarostami has inspired generations of filmmakers worldwide. His movies were usually shot from a compassionate perspective to depict the lives and emotions of ordinary people in Iran.

This year marks the 5th anniversary of the director's death at the age of 76. Kiarostami's representative works from the 1970s to the 1990s will be presented, providing insight into his career and artistry, as well as the history and culture of Iran.

The film master's 11 short movies made between 1970 and 1982 for the Institute for the Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults will be shown as a collection. Among them are "Bread and Alley," "The Breaktime" and "So Can I."

The 10-minute "Bread and Alley," released in 1970, was Kiarostami's first cinematic work. He combined elements of child psychology and neorealism in the short film about a confrontation in an alley between a child carrying bread and a hungry, frightening dog.

Other than the cinematographer, the crew consisted of inexperienced amateurs – as was Kiarostami at that time – and didn't follow the conventions of filmmaking.

"The Experience" (1973) and "The Wedding Suit" (1976) are two drama films shot from children's points of view that examine big social class differences at that time.

"The Traveler" (1974) is an acclaimed early feature film of the director, centered on a village boy's efforts to buy a bus ticket to Tehran to watch his favorite football team.

"Case One, Case Two" (1979) and "Fellow Citizen" (1983) are two of his documentaries.

"Case One, Case Two" focuses on a teacher's investigation into a student who doesn't own up to talking behind the teacher's back in class. "Fellow Citizen" records a traffic policeman's exchanges with various people as lawmakers in Tehran decide to close off a section of the capital to regular traffic.

The Koker trilogy is a series of three films directed by Kiarostami – "Where is the Friend's Home?" (1987), "And Life Goes On" (1992) and "Through the Olive Trees" (1994) – all set in Koker, a small village in Iran where a 7.4-magnitude earthquake in 1990 destroyed almost everything. The latter two films depict how the earthquake changed the village and its people.

His "Taste of Cherry" in 1997 is about a middle-aged man who drives around the hilly outskirts of Tehran in the hope of finding someone who will agree to dispose of his body after he commits suicide, conveying the director's thoughts on life and death. It won the Palme d'Or for best film at the 1997 Cannes Film Festival.

The 1999 production "The Wind Will Carry Us" won Kiarostami the Grand Jury Prize at the 1999 Venice International Film Festival and the FIPRESCI Award. It follows a city engineer's visit to a rural village in Iran to keep vigil for a dying relative, and his efforts to fit in with the local community.

The local art film federation has hosted several retrospective film exhibitions of celebrated filmmakers, such as Werner Herzog and Stanley Kubrick, with more acclaimed productions on tap in the near future.