Iranian director Farhadi sets Istanbul as new film location

ISTANBUL - Anadolu Agency

Asghar Farhadi’s ‘A Separation’ (L) brought the first Oscar to Iran in 2012, while his latest film ‘The Past brought leading actress Berenice Beco the Palme d’Or at Cannes Film Festival last year.

Iran’s award-winning director Asghar Farhadi, who brought his country its first Academy Award in 2012, revealed at the Istanbul Film Festival that his next work will be set in Europe.   

The 41-year-old director, who is in Turkey as the international competition jury president of the 33rd Istanbul Film Festival, said the exact setting of his next movie is a secret, although his last work, “The Past,” was set in France.

“The Past,” which was shot in French despite Farhadi not speaking the language, brought leading actress Berenice Bejo the Palme d’Or at Cannes Film Festival in 2013.    

Stating Turkish culture is very close to his own, Farhadi said Istanbul could be a future filming location.    

Considered a master filmmaker and screenwriter, Farhadi thinks Iranian cinema was important to change American “misconceptions” about contemporary Iranian life.    

“The media gives people the wrong image but through these kinds of films, they can find real people, real Iranians,” he added, claiming that by watching these works, more people would understand that Iranians are very similar to themselves.

Known for his open-ended and dilemmatic movies, Fahradi said there is not a good and bad difference between the characters in his films, unlike Greek tragedies. “In today’s world, the dispute is between good and good. We don’t really know if we would be happy when any of them win,” the director
said. Although Iran has a long-standing cinema tradition which was established before the 1979 revolution, Fahradi claimed most people do not know Iranian cinema’s earlier examples, adding only the output from the industry’s last two decades is well-known in Turkey or internationally.

Praised directors Güney and Ceylan

Pointing to the importance of Iranian cinema to showcase ordinary people’s lives, Farhadi said around 100 films are made annually in Iran.   

He also praised Turkey’s Cannes-winning director Yılmaz Güney, who mainly portrayed working-class people’s lives on film, and Nuri Bilgi Ceylan, a multi-award winning filmmaker.

Farhadi’s fifth move “A Separation” won a range of awards in 2012, including an Oscar and a Golden Globe for best foreign language film and a Golden Bear award at the Berlin Film Festival.

The film begins with the divorce proceedings of a couple in a courthouse. As the couple tries, perhaps not very hard, to find the ideal solution for their teen daughter’s sake, the film takes a whole different turn with unexpected complications.