The first of Kiarostami’s films made for, rather than about, children was an experiment in combining live action and animation, done in collaboration with animator Nafiseh Riahi.

The camera with a sun shade is mounted on a heavy tripod in front of a window. Over 21 consecutive days the view outside is filmed from this perspective.

Kata, a 43-year-old factory worker, longs to have a child of her own. Following her instinct to cultivate a maternal bond, she befriends Anna, a teenager in the care of the state, and slowly builds a meaningful relationship, which subtly challenges traditional familial structures.

A film about Armenia’s shepherds. A measured glance at the contradictory yet also harmonious relation between man and nature, scored to Vivaldi’s Four Seasons.

Zerkalo is an elusive autobiographical film poem in which Tarkovsky implicitly mixes his own childhood memories of the Russian countryside with a collective (Russian) history.

Factory worker Küsters, faced with the threat of redundancy, kills his boss and commits suicide. His widow finds herself deserted by her family and friends, until a wealthy communist couple decide to make political capital from her plight.

“In the production diary from the editing, there were many discussions about life and the ethics of filming people who are facing death. For example, on January 2, 1975, there was such a conversation between Tamura and Ogawa.

“Upon its release in Europe and the United States in 1975–76, Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s Fox and His Friends (Faustrecht der Freiheit, 1975) disappointed many European and American gay critics. In their reviews, these critics criticized the film from two dominant perspectives.

“Money, well-timed and properly applied, can accomplish anything.”

Barry Lyndon’s mother

Jeanne Dielman, a lonely young widow, lives with her son Sylvain following an immutable order: while the boy is in school, she cares for their apartment, does chores, and receives clients in the afternoon. However, something happens that changes her safe routine.