Best Photos Taken by Filmmakers for UK Exhibit

London branch of Contemporary and Modern Art (CAMA) Gallery is to hold an exhibition of photographs taken by eight respected Iranian cineastes from September 7.

According to Mona Khosh-Eqbal, the gallery manager, the exhibit “Time Lapse” will show a selection of photos taken by Cannes Film Festival award-winning directors Abbas Kiarostami and Jafar Panahi; cinematographer, screenwriter and director Mahmoud Kalari; documentarian Seyfollah Samadian, filmmaker and screenwriter Nasser Taghvai, documentarian Kamran Shirdel, well-known actor, voice actor and director Hamid Jebeli and San Sebastian International Film Festival award-winning director Majid Barzegar.

Though the auteur Kiarostami (1940-2016) was best known for his works in cinema, he was also a photographer, poet, painter, illustrator, installation artist and graphic designer. His photos have been seen in many exhibitions in and outside the country.

Kiarostami had once said his self-taught photography is a parallel activity to his filmmaking in that they both interact and influence each other. He had expressed great admiration for the stillness of photography and believed that “photography is the mother of cinema”.

Two months earlier Khosh-Eqbal launched the same show for ten days at the Tehran branch of CAMA Gallery.

From each filmmaker two to four photos have been selected for display at the London exhibit. “There will be two photos by Kamran Shirdel, 79, taken during the days that led to the 1979 Islamic Revolution. The photos have been now developed from negatives after 40 years,” Honaronline quoted Khosh-Eqbal as saying.

Jafar Panahi will be participating in the show with two works. In one of the photos he shows the tragic death of the three-year-old Syrian boy Alan Kurdi who made global headlines after he drowned in the Mediterranean Sea in September 2015. The second photo is of a single tree which he captured in the memory of Abbas Kiarostami as the late auteur loved nature and especially trees. Kiarostami has a well-known photo collection featuring single trees.