Majid Majidi Praises Seyfollah Samadian's Documentary on Abbas Kiarostami / In Praise of Pure Documentary Cinema

'Driving with Abbas Kiarostami', directed by Seyfollah Samadian, screened in the documentary competition of the 31st Busan International Film Festival on October 10, 2026, followed by a Q&A session with the director, who answered questions from the moderator and audience.

After the world premiere of the movie "On the Road with Abbas Kiarostami"

"On the Road with Abbas Kiarostami", made by Seifoleh Samadian, in the Musabafe Documentary section of the 31st Pusan International Film Festival on October 10, 2026, a question and answer session was held with the presence of the director, and Samadian answered the questions of the host and the audience.

According to Ambassador Arjan, at the end of the meeting, Majid Majidi, who attended the world premiere of the film "Ghazai Nimroz" in the main competition section of the Pusan Festival and was one of the attendees in the theater, expressed his feelings after seeing this 88-minute documentary by Kay Samadian as follows: In 1992, for my first film, "Badok", I invited Mr. Samadian, who was a famous photographer at that time, to accept the shooting of the film. But he did not accept the filming job with a special trick!

It was natural for me to be a little upset. But my friendship with Samadian continues to this day.

I had seen Samadian's work before, but tonight when I saw the documentary film "On the Road with Abbas Kiarostami", especially the last episode, I was so moved that I wanted to talk about it with you here.

In addition to photography, Samadian could become a capable cinematographer in Iranian cinema, but at that time something was missing in Iranian cinema, especially this type of documentary cinema, which he presented and I would like to talk about it in detail. Now, it's not limited at this time, so I'll just mention it briefly.

The camera that Seifale worked with is in a very limited space. When we want to make a film, we see the location, check all the angles to design the best positions and angles. Now you think that in the limited space of the car, where you don't know what is going to happen, and despite all the limitations of maneuvering, his camera recorded the most beautiful plans. Now we are not talking about Mr. Kiarostami; I am talking about Seifala, especially episode ten (the last).

Until today, we used to say that Kiarostami is the "poet" of Iranian cinema, now after seeing this episode, I can add that Kiarostami is the "philosopher" of Iranian cinema, and we get all this feeling from Samadian's camera. He says the most beautiful words, the camera is behind him and does not go into Kiarostami's eyes, does not come close to his face. Rather, it shows a blue tanker moving beautifully under the snow on the road.

This episode is so poetic that it is pure documentary cinema, a cinema I could talk about for hours.

The world premiere of "On the Road with Kiarostami" in Busan; Samadian's second documentary from the heart of the roads...