"Kiarostami [is] one of the great filmmakers of our time … this masterpiece radiates with wonder and euphoria." – Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader

Cinema lost one of its most important and respected filmmakers in July with the death of Abbas Kiarostami. MIFF pays tribute to the great Iranian master – who visited the festival in 2003 – with a screening of Taste of Cherry.

Filmed with the piercing intensity of a parable, the film follows a man on the verge of suicide who seeks someone willing to bury him discreetly. But it’s not until he meets a Turkish taxidermist that he finds someone willing to help, but also someone who might change his mind.

Winner of the Palme d'Or at Cannes 1997, Taste of Cherry is one of the director’s most personal and poignant movies, with the story’s ostensibly bleak premise turned around to become something profoundly life-affirming. There could be no better film to commemorate the late director’s remarkable life and output.

"Exquisite … Kiarastomi, like no other filmmaker, has a vision of human scale that is simultaneously epic and precisely minuscule." – New York Times

This screening will be introduced by award-winning director Nora Niasari, one of 50 filmmakers selected for the Abbas Kiarostami filmmaking workshop in Barcelona last year.