Lights, camera, action!
Wait, let’s move the sofa and put the dining room table over there, no, no, over there…this film shot as a documentary by the prolific Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami, is based on a true story.
In it film buff Hossein Sabzian is mistaken for a well-known director Mohsen Makhmalbaf by the Ahankhahs family. Mrs. Ahankhahs meets Mr. Sabzian on the bus and thinking he was the famous director invites him to her home to meet her son (an aspiring filmmaker). The family was quite trusting and accommodating as "Director" Sabzian pretends to plan his next film using the Ahankhahs home as the set. He has the family rearrange the furniture to "better use the space". Mr. Ahankhahs suspects something is wrong after the director borrows some money from his son and so he calls a magazine reporter (Hassan Frazmand) about the story.
Kiarostami received permission to film the trial which was to decide what Sabzian was guilty of: impersonation or swindling. Why did he try to cheat the Ahankhahs and what should be the penalty.
The film has an odd position between fact and fiction, a documentary that you would never dream could be captured on film and not have been staged (though possibly recreated). In the trial we learn that Sabzian has no money, that he is trying to get a job and that he loves film and would like to make a film. The Ahankhahs wanted to believe they would really be in a film, everyone’s dream of immortality and in the end they were!

Reviewed by Eric Michel, FilmCities