After thirty-nine films, thirteen Festival
participations, and one Palme d’or, Abbas
Kiarostami returns to Competition at Cannes with Certified
Copy. The Iranian director presents his first
foreign feature film, screened at 11.15 and 22.30 at the Grand Théâtre
Lumière.
From the casting to the shoot location, Abbas Kiarostami leaves Iran
behind for the first time. The title roles are played by French actress,
Juliette
Binoche, and British baritone William Shimmel. Abbas Kiarostami
chose to film in the Tuscan village of San Giminiano. “I
don’t think
that shooting in Italy changed anything about my artistic style. I’m
sure that it didn’t: even if the place and the language were different
for me, the film and its characters were familiar.” (source: Trois
Couleurs)
Although Certified Copy was shot abroad and with
European
actors, Abbas Kiarostami tells a universal story, that of a writer and a
gallery owner, a couple meeting. “When I wrote this script,
I
wanted it to be free of any specific Eastern detail. I wanted these
characters and their dialogues to be universal.” Until Certified
Copy, Abbas Kiarostami had always insisted on working in his own
country. He stayed in Iran even after the Islamic Revolution, when his
filmmaking peers fled the country and the draconian constraints of the
regime came to bear on artistic expression
Juliette Binoche
Juliette Binoche, William Shimell, and Abbas
Kiarostami, the director of Certified Copy (Copie
conforme), his new feature film presented this Tuesday
in Competition, answered journalists’ questions at noon today. This
press conference was marked by the announcement that director Jafar
Panahi, still detained in an Iranian prison, has started a hunger
strike.
Abbas Kiarostami, on his relationship to the identity of
his characters:
In all the film experiences I have had, I have always possessed
something of my characters within me. My films are not derived from any
art form, but from reality. I always base my characters on real life
experiences.
Juliette Binoche, about her experience with the Iranian
director:
Abbas Kiarostami gave me plenty of time in front of the camera.
This freedom is rare for an actress. The way he films enabled me to
turn emotional somersaults, to live an extraordinary inner immensity,
and to plunge into a certain creativity that I have not often explored
before.
Abbas Kiarostami on the social and political dimension of
his film:
Can one live in a society and not have, by necessity, a
political dimension? My films never operate through the mediation of a
fictional or literary story, but through reality. And in the real world,
the social and political dimension is ubiquitous