Ten

© Zeitgeist Films

Gender relations and the struggles of daily middle-class life are foregrounded in this video-film shot almost entirely inside an automobile during rush-hour traffic in the city of Tehran. A mixed cast of untrained and seasoned professional actors adds to the film’s aesthetic tensions and moments of surprise. Abbas Kiarostami’s cinema, while steeped in Persian poetic traditions, offers a new, authorial vista on Iranian modernity and its global reach. The film was nominated for a Golden Palm at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival.

Directed by Abbas Kiarostami • 2002, France/Iran/USA
91 minutes • 35mm • in Farsi with English subtitles

Co-sponsored by the UCI Samuel Jordan Center
for Persian Studies and Culture