Sajjad Asghari: Abbas Kiarostami was supposed to be the head of the jury of the Under the Olive Trees Film Festival, and I was the executive secretary

The Legend of Media Life – One day during the process of learning cinema science, when I was in the circle of the master, our conversation, which was always friendly, went to the point where I suggested that I organize a film festival titled Under the Olive Trees, would you be honored to come and work? He shared one of his sweet memories with me, Mr. Kiarostami said that when we were filming the movie Like a Lover in Japan, one day when the work was finished and we were returning from the countryside, a few lights around that distance, consider an extreme long shot, came into view. We went forward like this, the volume of the environment and the lights became more visible until we got closer to the lights that were shining. On one of the sources of light that we saw from afar and now came into view, it was written Abbas Kiarostami’s Video Club, when the team members went forward, the door to acquaintance opened and the owner of the video club said that he loves cinema and your worldview and that he is a fan of your cinema. That’s why I named you

End quote; Kiarostami returned and said, “After half a century of working in cinema, I would certainly be happy if my name or my works were at ceremonies or film festivals.” Our conversation led to the idea that I would become the executive secretary of the Under the Olive Trees Festival and continue to handle administrative issues, and that Mr. Kiarostami, along with his filmmaker friends in the international arena, would become the chairman and members of the jury. We were pursuing our efforts in the province to secure the festival’s administrative resources, when we encountered a change in the parliamentarian, the respected governor of Rudbar County, Mr. Moezin, who was working on this issue from start to finish, and the case for pursuing this issue was closed in a way, and the Under the Olive Trees Film Festival took root somewhere else under the title of the International Ceremony of the Academy of the Legend of Life, where we designed the section for the donation of the Academy’s statue to a lasting figure in memory of Abbas Kiarostami

Where is Abbas Kiarostami’s Quaker trilogy called “Where is the Friend’s House?” , Under the Olive Trees, Life and Nothing Else are among the acclaimed and thought-provoking works of Iranian cinema that were filmed in the north of the country, in Gilan Province, in Rudbar County