Through The Olive Trees- Abbas Kiarostami (2026)

In the pantheon of world cinema, few filmmakers have blurred the line between documentary and fiction with the philosophical rigor of Abbas Kiarostami. As the leading light of the Iranian New Wave, Kiarostami constructed films that were not merely stories but meditations on the very nature of storytelling. While his 1997 masterpiece Taste of Cherry won the Palme d’Or, it is the final film of his informal “Koker Trilogy”— Through the Olive Trees (1994)—that serves as the most breathtaking and vertiginous essay on the relationship between art, reality, and obsession.

In real life, Hossein had proposed to Tahereh before the earthquake, but was rejected by her family because he was poor, illiterate, and homeless. On set, Tahereh maintains a "blistering silence," refusing to even look at him or speak his name during takes, forcing the director to repeatedly intervene in their personal drama. Key Themes and Style Through the olive trees- Abbas Kiarostami

Throughout the production, Hossein uses the proximity granted by the film roles to persistently plead his case to Tahereh, who refuses to speak to him outside of their scripted lines . Themes and Style In the pantheon of world cinema, few filmmakers

The narrative engine of the film is the off-screen, one-sided love affair between Hossein Rezai (playing himself) and Tahereh Ladanian (playing a role). Hossein is poor, speaks informally, and lives in a tent. Tahereh is educated, literate (she reads her lines from a script, while Hossein must memorize them), and comes from a family of landowners. In real life, Hossein had proposed to Tahereh