Kiarostami's Looking at Tazieh at Scotland's Edinburgh International Festival

Photo: Karim Abrahem Academie Anderlecht Video installation by Abbas Kiarostami Edinburgh International Festival Tazieh is an ancient Persian theatrical tradition - a form of Shiite passion play, telling epic tales in memory of the martyrdom of Imam Hussein, grandson of the prophet Mohammed. Open-air performances draw huge crowds which themselves become part of the experience and are a rare example of popular drama in the Islamic world. Abbas Kiarostami is an internationally acclaimed filmmaker whose films, part documentary and part fiction, are deeply rooted in the Iran of his birth and whose attentive scrutiny of realism is accompanied by a profound interrogation of the language of cinema. Looking at Tazieh is a video installation with separate screens simultaneously showing three perspectives of a Tazieh performance and... [read full story]