TEHRAN – Spanish filmmaker Victor Erice who was a close friend of the late Iranian auteur Abbas Kiarostami has said that the world gets poorer when people like Kiarostami die.

In 2006, the two filmmakers showcased their works of photography, installations and screenings during a series of exhibitions titled the Erice -- Kiarostami Correspondences in Spain and France.

Speaking on the opening day of a three-day tribute to Kiarostami at the Fajr International Film Festival in Tehran on Saturday, Erice said that he became familiar with Kiarostami after he saw his 1990 movie “Close-up” in Madrid.

After watching the film, Erice felt that a new view had been born in cinema.

When European cinema had become worn out, he taught European filmmakers to revise their outlook on the world, he said.  
 
Erice says that besides air pollution, the world is suffering from visual pollution. He said that Kiarostami found a solution for the latter when he connected innocence with knowledge.   
 
In addition, American critics Godfrey Cheshire and Jonathan Rosenbaum, Icelandic filmmaker Fridrik Thor Fridriksson, and Turkish director Semih Kaplanoglu delivered speeches at the meeting.

The closing day of the commemoration of Kiarostami will be held today with a speech by Colombian film expert Estephania Bonnett Alonso.

She is the co-founder of the Black Factory Cinema, a production house devoted to film production and filmmaking training, which also organized Kiarostami’s workshops in the Spanish-speaking countries.

In addition, Negar Eskandarfar, the director of the Karnameh Art and Cultural Institute in Tehran, will also deliver a lecture today. Kiarostami arranged his workshops in Iran under the auspices of the institute. 

Photo: Spanish filmmaker Victor Erice speaks during a commemoration of Iranian auteur Abbas Kiarostami at the 35th Fajr International Film Festival at Tehran’s Charsu Cineplex on April 22, 2017. (Mehr/Mehran Riazi)

MMS/YAW