And Life Goes On

Set in the aftermath of the devastating 1991 earthquake in Iran that claimed 30,000 lives, this road movie follows a filmmaker and his son as they travel to the town of Koker in search of two actors from his last film. tells the true story of the filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami, balancing on the boundary of fiction and documentary. Despite being a reenactment, it is realistic in every detail: the collapsed buildings, cracked roads and crushed cars are all authentic remnants of the earthquake, and Kiarostami invited earthquake survivors to play themselves. The boundary between reality and fiction becomes blurred, a subject explored in the film itself. As one of the protagonists explains, “In reality this [house] belongs to the movie. They told me that if I wanted I could remain in this house. Unfortunately the earthquake destroyed my real house. […] Then I installed myself here and I try to make it habitable. The movie becomes again reality.” More than a testament to perseverance and the will to survive, is proof of their existence.