Where Is the Friend's Home?

Not to be confused with Where Is My Friend's Home.
Where Is the Friend's Home?

Film poster
Directed by Abbas Kiarostami
Produced by Ali Reza Zarrin
Written by Abbas Kiarostami
Starring Babak Ahmadpour
Ahmad Ahmadpour
Cinematography Farhad Saba
Edited by Abbas Kiarostami
Release dates
 1987
Running time
 83 min.
Country Iran
Language Persian

Where Is the Friend's Home? (Persian: خانه دوست کجاست‎‎, Khane-ye doust kodjast) is a 1987 Iranian film directed and written by Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami.[1] The title of the film was derived from a poem by Sohrab Sepehri. It is considered the first film in Kiarostami's Koker trilogy, followed by Life, and Nothing More... and Through the Olive Trees, all of which take place in Koker, Iran.[2]

The film tells a deceptively simple account of a conscientious schoolboy's quest to return his friend's notebook in a neighboring village, since, should his friend fail to hand it in the next day, it is likely he will get expelled. Hence this film has been seen as a metaphor for the sense of civil duty, about loyalty and everyday heroics. The traditional beliefs of Iranian rural people are also shown in many parts of the movie.

The film is among the top ten in the BFI list of the 50 films you should see by the age of 14.

Plot

As he prepares to do his homework, Ahmed realizes that he accidentally brought home a notebook belonging to one of his classmates. Knowing that his friend may be expelled if he does not have the notebook in order to complete his homework, Ahmed goes looking for his classmate.

Cast

Festivals

It won the Bronze Leopard at the 1989 Locarno Film Festival.[3] It also won the Golden Plate at the Fajr Film Festival.

Legacy

Where Is The Friend's Home? was Kiarostami's first film to gain major international attention. The film's title has sometimes been translated as Where Is My Friend's House?[2]

Iranian filmmaker Bahman Ghobadi said that "I always have this film in mind because of the director's profound perspective on filmmaking and its strange and distinct structure."[3]

Jonathan Rosenbaum called Kiarostami the greatest living filmmaker and called the film (along with Through the Olive Trees and Life and Nothing More) "sustained meditations on singular landscapes and the way ordinary people live in them; obsessional quests that take on the contours of parables; concentrated inquiries that raise more questions than they answer; and comic as well as cosmic poems about dealing with personal and impersonal disaster. They're about making discoveries and cherishing what's in the world--including things that we can't understand."[4]

References

  1. ↑ Mike Lorefice (2006). "Where Is the Friend's Home, Iran - 1987". metalasylum.com. Retrieved 2007-02-27.
  2. 1 2 "Where is My Friend's House? (1987)". Turner Classic Movies. Retrieved March 1, 2015.
  3. 1 2 "Where is the Friend's Home?". Toronto International Film Festival. Retrieved February 23, 2015.
  4. ↑ Rosenbaum, Jonathan. "Where Is My Friend's House?". Chicago Reader. Retrieved February 23, 2015.
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