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I wonder if this is why Criterion is holding off the Koker trilogy. But absolutely fantastic news, especially for the rare shorts.

I think waiting on restorations is absolutely the reason - I saw some of these earlier in the year and they were still played off Betacam tapes.

(The ending Through the Olive Trees is made almost more amusing by this, as the unknowable indecipherable nature of its extreme long shot is exacerbated by a lack of resolution)

I assume the "first 20 films" referred to in that article include Kiarostami's many shorts for Kanun (Kiarostami only has something like 16 to 22 features, depending on which films you count as "features"). If so, then the restored films would be Bread and Alley through 1989's Homework, and wouldn't include Life an Nothing More or Through the Olive Trees, the second and third entries in the so-called "Koker trilogy." Still great news, though, especially in re. the shorts, for which in some cases there are no good circulating prints in Europe or North America.

whaleallright wrote:I assume the "first 20 films" referred to in that article include Kiarostami's many shorts for Kanun (Kiarostami only has something like 16 to 22 features, depending on which films you count as "features"). If so, then the restored films would be Bread and Alley through 1989's Homework, and wouldn't include Life an Nothing More or Through the Olive Trees, the second and third entries in the so-called "Koker trilogy." Still great news, though, especially in re. the shorts, for which in some cases there are no good circulating prints in Europe or North America.

The Variety article that broke the news specifically listed Life and Nothing More (or And Life Goes On) so I think we could safely assume the "Koker trilogy" is included in the package.

Thanks! I wonder how they are counting to twenty!

The Variety article says 14 of the 20 are shorts or mid-lengths, and also seems to suggest that films already owned by mk2 (like two of the Koker films) might not be included in the count of 20. It also says they now own "nearly all" of his films.

New master blu-ray box sets of Kiarostami's features have just shown up on Amazon Japan from TCエンタテインメント:

The first one has 2K new masters of Through the Olive Trees, Life and Nothing More, and Where Is the Friend's Home?


The second one has 4k or 2k new masters of Homework, A Taste of Cherry, The Wind Will Carry Us, and Traveler.


There are also some individual movie blu-rays: the one for Where Is the Friend's Home has the MK2 logo on it.

And Amazon Japan renders the final film of the Koker Trilogy's title in English as: "Olive Slop House the Forest of New Master Edition." Just beautiful.

It was mentioned like three months ago on this board. But yeah, great editions and package design!

WmS wrote: Thu Feb 14, 2019 1:37 amOlive Slop House the Forest of New Master Edition[/url] Just beautiful.

Pretty Insane translation. Google Translate gets it pretty much right -- New master version through the olive forest.

andyli wrote: Thu Feb 14, 2019 2:28 am It was mentioned like three months ago on this board. But yeah, great editions and package design!

Whoops, missed that in my search. But really I just wanted to share the Olive Slop House.

From Harper's Magazine...
Discussed in this essay:

The Films of Abbas Kiarostami, a nationally touring retrospective. Janus Films

The BAMPFA Kiarostami program is up, running from August through December, and given how long it's running, I'm assuming this is pretty much everything Janus has:
https://bampfa.org/program/abbas-kiarostami-life-as-art

Most everything is flagged as a "Digital Restoration," except Certified Copy (35mm), Close-Up (35mm), ABC Africa (digital, no restoration), Ten (no format listed yet), 10 on Ten (digital, no restoration), and two movies about rather than by Kiarostami, 76 Minutes and 16 Seconds with Abbas Kiarostami (DCP, Seifollah Samadian) and Víctor Erice–Abbas Kiarostami: Correspondences (DigiBeta, Nautilus Films). Unless I missed something, Janus is listed as the rights-holder for all of them, including the shorts, except the two not by Kiarostami himself and Like Someone in Love, which is IFC.

The Wind Will Carry Us is still credited to Cohen. Taste of Cherry doesn't seem to be on the schedule but is included as one of the images so I'm assuming it'll be announced later as part of their lecture series (which I can never make because they're in the early afternoon).

chiendent wrote: Thu May 09, 2019 11:30 pm The Wind Will Carry Us is still credited to Cohen. Taste of Cherry doesn't seem to be on the schedule but is included as one of the images so I'm assuming it'll be announced later as part of their lecture series (which I can never make because they're in the early afternoon).

Ah, good catch. I missed those.

And yes, iirc, Marilyn Fabe said (or Susan Oxtoby introducing Fabe said) at one of her last Kore-eda lectures that she would be doing a Kiarostami lecture series in the Fall. I'd forgotten that until you mentioned it.

I made it to a few of the Kore-eda ones and quite enjoyed her brief intros and post-screening discussions. They're almost worth attending just to watch her deftly save audience questions from their own inanity.

senseabove wrote: Thu May 09, 2019 11:11 pm The BAMPFA Kiarostami program is up, running from August through December, and given how long it's running, I'm assuming this is pretty much everything Janus has:
https://bampfa.org/program/abbas-kiarostami-life-as-art

Most everything is flagged as a "Digital Restoration," except Certified Copy (35mm), Close-Up (35mm), ABC Africa (digital, no restoration), Ten (no format listed yet), 10 on Ten (digital, no restoration), and two movies about rather than by Kiarostami, 76 Minutes and 16 Seconds with Abbas Kiarostami (DCP, Seifollah Samadian) and Víctor Erice–Abbas Kiarostami: Correspondences (DigiBeta, Nautilus Films). Unless I missed something, Janus is listed as the rights-holder for all of them, including the shorts, except the two not by Kiarostami himself and Like Someone in Love, which is IFC.

Víctor Erice–Abbas Kiarostami: Correspondences is actually a series of shorts by Kiarostami and Erice, exchanging video-letters over the years for the purpose of an exhibition, which started in Barcelona (Catalan Cultural Center of Barcelona, Feb 9-May 21 2006), moved to Madrid, and finished for the dual-exhibition-retrospective in Paris (Centre Georges Pompidou, 2007). 10 or 12 video-letters I believe.
It's fascinating to see 2 great filmmakers exchange visual letters (through the medium they master) not that these video-letters are masterpieces, but it's the connexion between them, the self-citation and the mutual-citation... how they pay homage to eachother's oeuvre, how they bridge the language barrier that is truly unique. There is not enough commentaries of living filmmakers on the oeuvre of another filmmaker...

Other than the usual suspects I recommend Shirin and Five. Unfortunately his first feature film is absent : The Report (1977) which is a couple drama with modernity undertones, wonderfully written and directed.

And available on a Criterion release!

Having seen my first Erice recently with The Quince Tree Sun, I'm really looking forward to that one.