Abbas Kiarostami

UNESCO Courier, July-August, 1995

* Why do you make films?

- Because I can't do anything else! Making films is something I have to do. It's like dreaming: it comes naturally, it fulfils a need. The driver of an Underground train who spends hours travelling through the dark tunnels dreams all the time. While they're in prison, convicts dream of the world outside. Blind people see by means of dreams. Life is impossible without dreams, and thanks to the cinema I can give shape to some of mine and let others share them. A link with other people is made through my dreams. It's a strange kind of pleasure, communicating with people I don't know and can't see but who can see my dreams. . . .

All artists yearn to communicate. It makes them ill if they can't share their dreams. I must be one of these people. This need links me to my audiences and, first and foremost, to my actors. During filming, and because of it, I empathize so strongly with the actors that they become part of me. The relationship becomes so intense that when shooting is over I find it impossible to part company with them. That's why my film Where is the Friend's Home? (1987) had two sequels, And life goes on . . . (1992) and Under the Olive Trees (1994), and will be continued in my future films. I am so fond of the region where these three films were made and the people who live there that I am in no hurry to move on.

What happens behind the camera gives me just as much pleasure as what happens in front of it. Behind it, one catches life unawares; in front, everything is planned and organized, even the actors' feelings and movements. Everything is subordinated to technical requirements. The equipment, the constraints of photography, the overpowering presence of the crew and especially of the director, all affect the actors' attitudes. The liveliness and excitement that are to be found behind the camera often dry up, fade away and die in front of it. We should have to get rid of the film crew and all their paraphernalia before the actors' performance could be the real thing, a true reflection of their identity. Only then could their complex inner life become visible.

People do not know themselves until they get to know their own repressed desires. They have to be revealed to themselves. Before any transformation can take place, we have to know our own legitimate needs, which originate in dreams. Our dreams grow out of the bitter experience of daily life, which they endeavour to transcend by seeking a life of their own.

The cinema can provide a window looking out from the mediocrity of life on to the world of dreams. Reality is the launching pad for dreams. Everything must start from reality, just as you launch a kite into the wind but hold on to the strings. The kite-strings lead us to reality. We enter the dream world and come back to real life.

After dreaming, reality may seem easier to bear, since the change of scene has brought an influx of energy and alleviated the sufferings of everyday existence. On the other hand, reality may seem intolerable, uglier and more oppressive than beforo a dead end. If this is the case, then we must change reality. We follow our dream until reality is transformed into dream and dream into reality.

* What difficulties are Iranian film-makers facing today?

- First of all, the same difficulties as those faced by film-makers the world over. No director can be sure his or her film will be a success. Generally speaking, producers want to back a good film, a quality film, but above all a money-spinner - and there's never any guarantee of that. One of the hardest things is to win a producer's confidence.

The difficulties specific to Iran, an Islamic country, are the limits imposed by religion. We film-makers are great liars; we create lies to suggest truths. We bring in a man from one place and a woman from another, and select a particular house and a particular child to present a true picture of a family. But if the woman has to get out of bed wearing a veil, I am the first to find the scene implausible. I live in an Islamic society and my family are Muslims, but neither my sister nor my wife wear headscarves in bed. So far I have managed to avoid this kind of scene which gives a false picture of reality, but because of these restrictions many subjects are automatically ruled out.

* Is that one of the reasons why you work with children?

- Not at all. I like working with children. It started quite by chance and then I came to like having them around. They are at ease in front of the camera. They are not thinking about fame or money. They are amenable.

* No American films are allowed to be distributed in Iran. What do you think of this ban?

- It's both a good thing and a bad thing: good for Iranian film-makers, who are protected from competition from American films and have been able to make films and win the appreciation of cinema-goers; bad for Iranian audiences, who can never see American pictures at the cinema. The situation clearly has both negative and positive aspects, negative because any ban is undesirable but positive as regards the protection of the Iranian film industry.