- Title: Farhadi's latest film Forushande premieres at Cannes
- Date: 22nd May 2016
- Summary: CANNES, FRANCE (MAY 21, 2016) (REUTERS) (SOUNDBITE) (Farsi) DIRECTOR, ASGHAR FARHADI, SAYING: (TRANSLATION PROVIDED BY FESTIVAL TRANSLATOR) "Iranian cinema is one of the most surprising and unexpected phenomena in Iranian society. Given the pressure under which the Iranian population live, nothing like cinema, like art should exist because in a way it should have eliminated by the situation but it has been the exact opposite there has been this response to the pressure, the oppression by creating and by being all the more creative and spontaneous. Of course there have been ups and downs but over the year there has been a very vivid and active trend of making new and diverse films and this is something that I feel very grateful to be a part of." VARIOUS OF FARHADI BEING INTERVIEWED
- Embargoed: 6th June 2016 11:40
- Keywords: Asghar Farhadi The Salesman Fo rushande
- Location: CANNES, FRANCE / VARIOUS UNKNOWN FILMING LOCATIONS
- City: CANNES, FRANCE / VARIOUS UNKNOWN FILMING LOCATIONS
- Country: France
- Topics: Film
- Reuters ID: LVA0074IW1ZYT
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: EDITORS PLEASE NOTE: TRANSLATION PROVIDED BY FESTIVAL TRANSLATORS
Iranian director Ashgar Farhadi's latest film, Forushande (The Salesman) premiered in Cannes on Saturday (May 21).
The film centres around a couple, who find their middle class intellectual life ripped apart after the wife is assaulted in her home.
They try to go on, notably playing in Arthur Miller's 'Death of a Salesman' at a local theatre. But the desire for revenge eats away at the husband.
For Farhadi, who said the story came to him while working on another film in Spain, it was a chance for him to return to Iran to make a movie.
"It's always hard to say how one comes up with a story, I think it's more like the story comes to you like with dreams, something appears and stays with you and grows, and sometimes you have to make a film to get rid of it, and that's how it becomes a script. So why this subject? I wouldn't be able to tell you, what I do know is that at that stage of my career I missed working in Iran so I wanted a pretext to go back, I've also had a long-standing desire to make a film about a play and so this is how the whole thing came together," he said.
With 'Forushande' Farhadi again centres the drama around an intense relationship between a couple as they deal with the consequences of what has happened.
"The oldest, the most ancient relationship in human history is the couples relationship, the love relationship between a man and a woman. But even being that old and classical we still feel that there's a lot to discover, because as soon as a man and woman come together all of the problems and difficulties arise from scratch as if there was no lesson to take from what has gone before so because of these complexities I feel that this is potentially the richest relationship to work on and create stories about," he said.
One of the most respected Iranian filmmakers internationally, Farhadi said he felt positive about the state of cinema in his home country.
"Iranian cinema is one of the most surprising and unexpected phenomena in Iranian society. Given the pressure under which the Iranian population live, nothing like cinema, like art should exist because in a way it should have eliminated by the situation but it has been the exact opposite, there has been this response to the pressure, the oppression by creating and by being all the more creative and spontaneous. Of course there have been ups and downs but over the year there has been a very vivid and active trend of making new and diverse films and this is something that I feel very grateful to be a part of," he said.
Farhadi's ''A Separation'' won Best Foreign Film at the 2012 Oscars, and the Iranian director's new film is a contender for the prestigious Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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