- Iran
SHIRIN
Synopsis
A darkened cinema. On the screen – which we never get to see – a stage adaptation of “Khosrow and Shirin”, the twelfth-century Persian epic poem, is playing. What Abbas Kiarostami shows in “Shirin” (Iran 2008) is only the faces of the women in the audience: 114 Iranian theatre and film actresses and, among them, Juliette Binoche. For ninety minutes, the camera follows their gazes and reactions; the plot can only be pieced together from the soundtrack and from what is reflected in the women’s faces. We hear a film we cannot see – and watch women watching it.
Kiarostami later described how the film came about: he filmed the women individually in his living room and asked them to look at a series of marks above the camera. What film they were “watching” was something he himself did not know during filming; he only decided on “Khosrow and Shirin” after the shoot. “Shirin” premiered in 2008 at the 65th Venice Film Festival. The film was shown at Around the World in 14 Films in Berlin in 2009.
Festival
Shown at the 2009 edition of Around the World in 14 Films.
