Víctor Erice – Abbas Kiarostami: Correspondences - 01. El Jardin del Pintor (Erice - Spain) VE to AK, 22 april 2005

Created for an innovative museum exhibition in Barcelona and Paris that paired the works of Víctor Erice and Abbas Kiarostami, Correspondences is composed of ten “filmed letters” between the two great filmmakers. As in their other films, children, imagination, and the creative process take center stage; in one, the young grandchildren of the painter from Erice’s The Quince Tree Sun show off their own unique styles, while in another nine-year-olds in a rural Spanish classroom watch Kiarostami’s Where Is the Friend’s Home? Kiarostami follows an “escaped quince” from the Spanish film to a neighborhood in Iran in one sequence, and plays with artistic perspective in another. “Modern messages in a bottle” (Miguel Marias), these not-so-simple video letters recognize no international stamps or borders, only the artistic and personal links between individuals.