Asghar Farhadi Retrospective

In early April, New York’s Lincoln Centre will play host to a retrospective of the work of Iranian director Asghar Farhadi — for the next two weeks, local audiences have the unusual chance to be ahead of inhabitants of the cultural centre of the world, courtesy of Directed by Asghar Farhadi at ACMI cinemas.

Where Farhadi’s five-film long show reel is relatively small, he has received formidable international acclaim, winning awards at the Berlin International Film Festival and Moscow International Film Festival, as well as taking home a little gold friend known as Oscar in the Best Foreign Language Film category at the 2011 Academy Awards, for A Separation.

Farhadi uses a deep understanding and proximity to his native culture to craft highly personal stories of familial tension, diaspora and the trouble with societal normality, as played out against the backdrop of culturally tumultuous Iran. Despite their narrative specificity, his films are globally relevant in their wider exploration of the human experience.

Image from About Elly (2009), credit Hi-Gloss Entertainment.