The London Film School and the Iran Heritage Foundation, in collaboration with Channel 4 and Hot Property Films, present a nine-day intensive workshop from 2-10 May 2005, led by the celebrated Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami, as part of the London wide festival of Kiarostami’s work.

Abbas Kiarostami has run filmmakers' workshops in the past few years, most recently in Turin, Italy and Sao Paulo, Brazil. These courses, encompassing the arts of direction and screenwriting, have had an extraordinary impact on their participants. Kiarostami deals with the most basic questions of screen form, with the filmmaker's relationship to their audience and their story, with illuminating simplicity.  Participants will make films on DV during the workshop.

Through the support of Channel 4, The Iran Heritage Foundation and the French Institute, the workshop is being offered free of charge. Twenty-five participants will be recruited through competitive application.  The selection panel includes representatives from the London Film School, FilmFour, the National Film Theatre and Hot Property Films.  The selection panel will be looking for candidates who can bring a knowledge of independent world cinema and creative skills to the workshop process. Technical film training is not essential.  The deadline for applications is 25th March 2005.

The workshop and films will be produced by BAFTA- winning producer Janine Marmot for Hot Property Films. Marmot has built a reputation as a producer of innovative cinema for a world wide audience. Her credits include ‘Bodysong’, directed by Simon Pummell and ‘I Could Read the Sky’, directed by Nicola Bruce.

Ben Gibson, Director of the London Film School said “Very few people have the creative and intellectual clarity to invent cinema from its most basic elements, from the ground up. We are very lucky to have the chance to see a master like Kiarostami thinking on his feet.”

For an application form please download from   www.lfs.org.uk/kiarostami