Where is the Friend's House? (Film)

1986: Dir: Abbas Kiarostami.



Context:
Title taken from poem 'Adress' by Sohrab Sepehri (note in the mystical tradition of sufi poetry etc, 'friend' is synonymous with God). Translation from Dabashi:

"Where is the friend's house?''

It was in the dawn when the rider asked this question.

The sky paused.

The passenger presented the branch of light he held with his lips to the darkness of sands

And pointed to a white poplar and said:

"Before you reach that tree,

There is a tree-road, greener than Gods dream.

On it, love is as blue as the feathers of honesty.

You go to the end of that road,

Which takes you to the other side of puberty.

Then you turn to the flower of solitude.

Just two steps before that flower,

You pause at the foot of the eternal fountain of earthly myths.

A transparent fear overcomes you there.

Then you hear a hissing sound in the fluid sincerity of the air,

And you will see a small child

Who has climbed a tall cypress to catch a bird in the nest of light,

And you will ask him

Where the friend's house is."

Reception: 
While preserving his critically positive judgment of Kiarostami and of Where Is the Friends House? in particular, Allamehzadeh condemns both the Islamic Republic and the Locarno Film Festival for having accepted this film, which was produced in 1986 but was included in the festival in 1989 against the specific stipulation of section C, Article 6 of their bylaws, which says that only those films produced during the preceding twelve months may be included in the annual festival





References/Resources:
http://www.criterionforum.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=13007&start=650#p479530