Boston Festival of Films from Iran

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The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston announces the return of the Boston Festival of Films from Iran. Since 1993, the festival has been jointly curated by film programmers from the MFA, the Smithsonian Museum’s Freer and Sackler Galleries, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. The three institutions present the festival simultaneously each January.

Highlights of this year’s festival include The Salesman by Asghar Farhadi (A Separation), a suspenseful drama that won Best Screenplay at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, plus a Best Actor award for Shahab Hosseini. The film follows a young couple (Farhadi and Taraneh Alidoosti) whose relationship begins to deteriorate during their performance in a local production of Arthur Miller’s The Salesman.

Mani Haghighi (Modest Reception) directs A Dragon Arrives!, a surreal Western about a detective whose investigation of a political prisoner’s apparent suicide takes a turn for the supernatural.

The festival pays homage to one of Iran’s greatest directors, the recently deceased Abbas Kiarostami (Certified Copy, Close-Up). 76 Minutes and 15 Seconds With Abbas Kiarostami is an innovative documentary about Kiarostami’s life and work, made by one of his closest collaborators, Seifollah Samadian. The festival also includes a 35mm screening of Kiarostami’s Palme d’Or-winning Taste of Cherry, a film about a desperate man seeking a stranger to help him end his life.

For a complete list of films and show times, and to purchase tickets, visit mfa.org/film.

TICKET & VENUE INFORMATION

Tickets may be purchased online at www.mfa.org/film, by calling the MFA Ticketing Line at 800.440.6975, or in person at any MFA ticket desk. Tickets are $9 for MFA members, $11 for nonmembers, $5 for students at local universities.