The Cinematheque

“With its cast of nonprofessional child actors, Uncle Moustache announces one of Beyzaie’s favourite themes: the anarchical joys of childhood.”

MoMA

Bahram Beyzaie’s first film Uncle Moustache, a charming tale of intergenerational conflict and resolution, was made at Kanoon, the Institute for the Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults. Like many of the films made at the studio, it takes a child’s eye-level observation and expands it into an effortlessly clear worldview. The title character lives a sealed-off life in his apartment. When a large, boisterous group of children take their football game to a field directly under his window, his peace—or perhaps just the predictable boredom of his life—is broken. ​“Uncle” tries to impose rules on their play, which the children find ways around. During his time at Kanoon, Abbas Kiarostami similarly made films that play with order, sequence, and the ways children perceive the world. His films in this program show encounters with obstacles (an attentive dog, a broken-down car) and the imagination (animal impressions, brilliantly coloured everyday objects).

Bread and Alley
نان و کوچه
Iran 1970
Abbas Kiarostami
12 min. DCP In Farsi with English subtitles

So Can I
منم میتونم
Iran 1975
Abbas Kiarostami
4 min. DCP In Farsi with English subtitles

Colors
…رنگ‌ها
Iran 1976
Abbas Kiarostami 15 min. DCP In Farsi with English subtitles

Solution No. 1
راه حل یک
Iran 1978
Abbas Kiarostami
12 min. DCP In Farsi with English subtitles

Uncle Moustache
عمو سیبیلو
Iran 1970
Bahram Beyzaie
28 min. DCP In Farsi with English subtitles

“For artists and intellectuals, Kanoon was a blessing. It was politically progressive enough, in a country stifled by censorship, to open its doors to dissident filmmakers … Kiarostami played a major role in shaping its film department into a place where filmmakers could enjoy the artistic freedom and independence they sought—freedom often absent in Iranian mainstream cinema.”

Ehsan Khoshbakht, The Criterion Collection