Cinematic Style of Abbas Kiarostami - Kiarostami and Digital Micro Cinema

Kiarostami and Digital Micro Cinema

At the turn of 21st century Kiarostami decided to change from 35 mm film production to digital video. The first film where he used this technology was ABC Africa, which was compiled from footage shot with two small digital video cameras, material originally gathered for the purposes of research and scouting. Referring to digital cinema Kiarostami said: "Digital video is within the reach of anybody, like a ballpoint pen. I'd even dare to predict that within the next decade, we'll see a burst of interest in film-making as a consequence of the impact of video". Kiarostami stated about the documentary ABC Africa that "directing was spontaneously and unconsciously eliminated, by which I mean artificial and conventional directing."

Abbas Kiarostami's film Ten (2002) was an experiment that used digital cameras to virtually eliminate the director. Kiarostami fastened cameras to the dashboard of a car, and then allowed his actors to act. There was no film crew in the car, and no director. There is no camera movement, other than the movement of the car which carries the camera. There is minimal cutting and editing. This new direction is towards a digital micro cinema, defined as micro-budget filmmaking allied with digital production.

According to filmmaker Matthew Clayfield, Kiarostami's work with digital video may be more valuable to cinema than it is to post-cinema, but it also proves that virtually anyone with a camera can contribute to the art form in ways that were previously impossible. In 2005, Kiarostami directed a workshop on digital film-making at the London Film School, in which he expressed reservations about digital cinema. "My film 10 is a couple of years old now," explains Kiarostami to film students, "and today I'm not so fascinated by digital technology. recently it has become clear to me just how few people actually know how to use it properly."

He also stated: "I have somewhat lost my enthusiasm in the last four or five years. Mainly because film students using digital video these days have not really produced anything more than superficial or simplistic; so I have my doubts. Despite the great advantages of digital video and the great ease of using the medium, still those who use it have first to understand the sensitivities of how to best use the medium."