The first film in Abbas Kiarostami’s sublime, interlacing Koker Trilogy takes a simple premise—a boy searches for the home of his classmate, whose school notebook he has accidentally taken—and transforms it into a miraculous child’s-eye adventure of the everyday. As our young hero zigzags determinedly across two towns, aided (and sometimes misdirected) by those he encounters, his quest becomes both a revealing portrait of rural Iranian society in all its richness and complexity and a touching parable about the meaning of personal responsibility. Sensitive and profound, WHERE IS THE FRIEND’S HOUSE? is shot through with all the beauty, tension and wonder a single day can contain.
“It's entirely possible that Abbas Kiarostami…[was] our greatest living filmmaker…[The Koker Trilogy] are sustained meditations on singular landscapes and the way ordinary people live in them…about making discoveries and cherishing what's in the world.” —Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader
“A simple but heart-rending tale of a child’s compassion...has all the qualities that put Iranian cinema on the map: formal simplicity, emotional directness, and the use of children as a window into societal ills.” —Scott Tobias, New York Times
“Poke beneath the film’s surface and you’ll find a movie about the moral duties we owe to each other in any society, about what it means to be a good person, and about taking care of each other. Kiarostami’s protagonists are often very young or very old, perhaps because those two ages allowed him to assign the greatest moral weight to seemingly very simple choices.” —Emily Todd VanDerWerff and Aja Romano, Vox
The Belcourt Theatre does not provide advisories about subject matter or potential triggering content, as sensitivities vary from person to person.
Beyond the synopses, trailers and review links on our website, other sources of information about content and age-appropriateness for specific films can be found on Common Sense Media and IMDb, as well as through general internet searches.
Visit the Official Website