This documentary series, spanning six feature-length films, explores the life and artistic journey of Nosratollah Karimi — an Iranian actor of theater and cinema, director, writer, sculptor, university professor, and gardener.
In 1982, Wim Wenders asked 16 of his fellow directors to speak on the future of cinema, resulting in the film Room 666. Now, 40 years later, in Cannes, director Lubna Playoust asks Wim Wenders himself and a new generation of filmmakers (James Gray, Rebecca Zlotowski, Claire Denis, Olivier Assayas, Nadav Lapid, Asghar Farhadi, Alice Rohrwacher and more) the same question: “is cinema a language about to get lost, an art about to die?”
The film was inspired by one of the most important documentaries shot by Krzysztof Kieślowski, Talking Heads (1980). The director asked his interlocutors seemingly simple questions, such as “Who are you?” and “What do you want?”.
The Salesman is Asghar Farhadi's seventh film that won two trophies for the Best Actor and Best Screenplay at Cannes Film Festival in 2016 and the academy award for the best Foreign Language Film in 2017. About The Salesman is a documentary about Farhadi's method of filmmaking: development, pre-production, production, and post-production, with interviews with Asghar Farhadi and the analysis of the renowned Iranian and international film critics about The Salesman and Farhadi's cinema.
An abandoned tumbledown theater in the outback of Paraíba state is the initial setting of a film about cinema, which explores the testimonials of the novelist and playwright Ariano Suassuna and other filmmakers such as Ruy Guerra, Julio Bressane, Ken Loach, Andrzej Wajda, Karim Ainouz, José Padilha, Hector Babenco, Vilmos Zsigmond, Béla Tarr, Gus Van Sant and Jia Zhangke. They all respond to two basic questions: why do they make movies and why do they serve the seventh art. The filmmakers share their thoughts about time, narrative, rhythm, light, movement, the meaning of tragedy, the audience‘s desires and the boundaries with other forms of art.
Asghar Farhadi (اصغر فرهادی) was born in 1972 in Iran. He became interested in cinema in his teenage years and started his filmmaking education by joining the Youth Cinema Society of Esfahan in 1986 where he made 8mm and 16mm short films. Asghar Farhadi received his Bachelors in Theater from University of Tehran's School of Dramatic Arts in 1998 and his Masters in Stage Direction from Tarbiat Modarres University a few years later. During these formative years, Farhadi made six shorts and two TV series for Iran's National Broadcasting Corporation (IRIB) of which "A Tale of a City" is most noteworthy. In 2001, Asghar Farhadi debute d in professional cinema by co-writing the script for Low Heights (2002) (Ertefae Past), a post-911 political farce chronicle of Southwest Iran, with famed war film director, Ebrahim Hatamikia. The film was met with both critical and public success. The following year, Asghar Farhadi made his directorial debut, Dancing in the Dust (2003) (Raghs dar Ghobar), about a man forced to divorce his wife and go hunting snakes in the desert in order to repay his debts to his in-laws. The film earned recognition at Fajr and Moscow International Film Festivals and a year later, Beautiful City (2004) (Shahr-e-Ziba), a grave work about a young man condemned to death at the age of sixteen, received awards from Fajr and Warsaw International Film Festivals. His third film, Fireworks Wednesday (2006) (Chaharshambe Soori), won the Gold Hugo at the 2006 Chicago International Film Festival. His fourth film, About Elly (2009) (Darbareye Elly) was called "a masterpiece" by film critic David Bordwell and won the Silver Bear for Best Director at 59th Berlin International Film Festival as well as Best Picture at Tribeca Film Festival. It was also Iran's official submission for the Foreign Language Film competition of Academy Awards in 2009. His most famous films, A Separation (2011) (Jodaeiye Nader az Simin) and The Salesman (2016), received both an oscar, many other major international awards and good critics all around the world.
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