The Koker Trilogy
9 Episodes
Criterion Collection Edition #990/991/992
Abbas Kiarostami first came to international attention for this wondrous, slyly self-referential series of films set in the rural northern-Iranian town of Koker. Poised delicately between fiction and documentary, comedy and tragedy, the lyrical fables in THE KOKER TRILOGY exemplify both the gentle humanism and the playful sleight of hand that define the director’s sensibility. With each successive film, Kiarostami takes us deeper into the behind-the-scenes “reality” of the film that preceded it, heightening our understanding of the complex network of human relationships that sustain both a movie set and a village. The result is a gradual outward zoom that reveals the cosmic majesty and mystery of ordinary life.
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1:23:23Episode 1Where Is the Friend’s House?
Episode 1
Directed by Abbas Kiarostami • 1987 • Iran
The first film in Abbas Kiarostami’s sublime, interlacing KOKER TRILOGY takes a simple premise—a boy searches for the home of his classmate, whose school notebook he has accidentally taken—and transforms it into a miraculous, child’s-eye adventure of ...
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1:35:20Episode 2And Life Goes On
Episode 2
Directed by Abbas Kiarostami • 1992 • Iran
Starring Farhad Kheradmand, Pouya Payvar, Hossein RezaiIn the aftermath of the 1990 earthquake in Iran that left fifty thousand dead, Abbas Kiarostami returned to Koker, where his camera surveys not only devastation but also the teeming life in its wak...
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1:43:50Episode 3Through the Olive Trees
Episode 3
Directed by Abbas Kiarostami • 1994 • Iran
Starring Mohammad Ali Keshavarz, Farhad Kheradmand, Zarifeh ShivaAbbas Kiarostami takes metanarrative gamesmanship to masterful new heights in the final installment of THE KOKER TRILOGY. Unfolding “behind the scenes” of AND LIFE GOES ON, this film trac...
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Homework
Episode 4
Directed by Abbas Kiarostami • 1989 • Iran
In Abbas Kiarostami’s second documentary feature about education, the filmmaker himself asks the questions, probing a succession of invariably cute first- and second-graders about their home situations and the schoolwork they must do there. It emerges t...
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52:36Episode 5Abbas Kiarostami: Truths and Dreams
Episode 5
Directed by Jean-Pierre Limosin • 1994 • France
Starring Abbas KiarostamiThis documentary by Jean-Pierre Limosin was broadcast as the November 28, 1994, episode of the French television show “Cinéma, de notre temps.” Featuring footage of Abbas Kiarostami returning to the Koker region, it chroni...
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14:16Episode 6Ahmad Kiarostami on THE KOKER TRILOGY
Episode 6
In this interview, conducted in 2018, director Abbas Kiarostami's son Ahmad talks about the personal stories behind the films that make up THE KOKER TRILOGY.
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Jamsheed Akrami and Godfrey Cheshire on THE KOKER TRILOGY
Episode 7
In 2018, the Criterion Collection recorded this conversation between scholar Jamsheed Akrami and critic Godfrey Cheshire on the subject of Abbas Kiarostami's KOKER TRILOGY, its importance to the New Iranian Cinema, and whether it can properly be called a trilogy at all.
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Abbas Kiarostami and Peter Scarlet on THE KOKER TRILOGY
Episode 8
Programmer Peter Scarlet interviewed director Abbas Kiarostami about his life, career, and THE KOKER TRILOGY in 2015. Live translation is provided by Massoumeh Lahidji.
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15:14Episode 9Hamid Naficy on Abbas Kiarostami
Episode 9
In this new interview, scholar Hamid Naficy, author of the multivolume “A Social History of Iranian Cinema,” discusses THE KOKER TRILOGY director Abbas Kiarostami's influences and his importance to the rise of what has come to be known as the New Iranian Cinema.
