24 Frames

A year after his death, Iranian Palme d’Or winner Abbas Kiarostami made his posthumous swansong at the Cannes Film Festival with a poignant film completed by his son Ahmad. Comprised of 24 vignettes, the film shows animating a series of still images – largely his own photographs, taken over 40 years. Minimalist, often bleak, but always beautiful, it’s a startling memento mori.
“My father started with paintings. He said: ‘These painters, they painted one scene. But that’s only one shot. I wonder what happens before and after?’ He didn’t think he was a filmmaker. He said: ‘I am an artist, I have different mediums to say things.’ In each frame of this film there’s something happening – take the one with the bird getting shot. My father had a friend, she was killed in a car accident. He made that one for her. As you can see, at first everything is quiet, and then they mourn, but then birds come back and start flying again.” (Thomas Page, in conversation with Ahmad Kiarostami)