Abbas Kiarostami: A Transversal Filmography

Spain, 1937. In the midst of the Civil War, Helena lives with her mother and her brother Bruno, unrecognizable and covered in bandages after returning from the front. Their strange, dehumanized presence awakens in Helena a restlessness that mingles with blurred memories, changing spaces, and blurring realities.

In a dark, abandoned mansion deep in the forest, an aging vampire filmmaker lives in communal seclusion with his five disciples. On the night of his birthday, he reveals his final wish: to film the one moment he has never dared to face — the sunrise —.

Alfonso Salido Zambrana, 59, has been battling colon cancer since September 2021, the most diagnosed cancer in Spain and the second deadliest. Although the advanced cancer diagnosis was a heavy blow, Alfonso didn’t give up his active life and dedicated even more energy to cycling, a passion he discovered at 44. Since his diagnosis, he has competed in UCI events in Coimbra, a world cycling championship in Glasgow in 2023, and the Spanish and Andalusian championships. His children, Francisco and Verónica, are also cyclists, and she started riding to support her father. Three years later, Alfonso remains full of life and motivation. He rides about 60 kilometers a day, except on chemotherapy days, which are every two weeks. The physical exhaustion from the treatment, he says, fades away as he pedals on the road.

Lolita, an older woman who has been living in solitude for over 20 years, plans and ritualizes each of the tasks leading up to a much-anticipated visit.

Francisco is a beggar who lives in the Almudena cemetery. One afternoon, while walking among the graves, he meets Julio, another peculiar beggar who claims to be a poet.

A group of travelers is trying to cross a lake to survive, but to do so they must face a hermit who lives in a cabin, the only one who can help them.

Emilio is a dull guy with a dull life. He only enjoys doing monologues as an amateur comedian on the stage of the same place where he started some time ago. But, at 40 years old, his dream of making it as a comedian has not come true. Unlike Carla, who is a famous comedian with her own TV show. One night, Emilio paints Carla some mustaches on one of the posters advertising her show. A few nights later, Carla shows up at the place where Emilio is performing.

Nothing is the same since Lucia's death. Nothing is right. Nothing is in its place. Marta, her little sister, is not even able to feel good in her own skin. The banality of the funeral, the coldness of the house, the terrible feeling of not being able to return the favor to the one who gave so much for her. It all piles up on her mind and crowds behind her eyes, but Marta refuses to cry. To do so would be to betray Lucia's memory. She prefers to work and let herself go in an eternal repetition. And yet Daniela has other plans for her. After all, her loss does not belong to her alone.

A masked man plunges into the shadows of a remote darkroom nightclub. Speakers throb as bodies collide to the pulse of industrial music. Amid the crowd, his eyes locks onto a boy with a defiant, hypnotic gaze. To possess him is an all-consuming need—yet this obsession weaves a cage where hunter and prey become prisoners of their own hunger.