Abbas Kiarostami

First Case, Second Case

First Case, Second Case

Made in the spring of 1979, not long after the shah’s overthrow, this extraordinary film serves as a Rorschach blot for people in a revolutionary mindset. Abbas Kiarostami stages two versions of a classroom-discipline situation—in one, a student tells on a troublemaker; in the other, seven students refuse to rat—and then has several adult authorities comment on the outcomes. The fascinating responses evoke conflicts between order and resistance.

Film Info

  • Iran
  • 1979
  • 48 minutes
  • Color
  • 1.37:1
  • Persian

Available In

Collector's Set

Eclipse Series 47: Abbas Kiarostami—Early Shorts and Features

Eclipse Series 47: Abbas Kiarostami—Early Shorts and Features

Blu-ray Box Set

3 Discs

$55.96

First Case, Second Case
Cast
Mehdi Azadbakht
Himself
Mohammadreza Barati
Himself
Hedayat Matin Daftari
Himself
Nader Ebrahimi
Himself
Ehteram Boroumand
Himself
Credits
Director
Abbas Kiarostami
Writer
Abbas Kiarostami
Director of photography
Houshang Baharlou
Editor
Abbas Kiarostami

Current

Abbas Kiarostami’s Early Shorts and Features: Poetic Solutions to Philosophical Problems
Abbas Kiarostami’s Early Shorts and Features: Poetic Solutions to Philosophical Problems

Though the first two decades of the Iranian filmmaker’s career have long been underappreciated, this fertile period yielded philosophical and restlessly innovative works that reinvigorated both documentary and narrative-fiction cinema.

By Ehsan Khoshbakht