Close-Up (1990) – Filming Locations
Crime / Drama · Directed by Abbas Kiarostami · Starring Hossain Sabzian, Nayer Mohseni Zonoozi
This fiction-documentary hybrid uses a sensational real-life event—the arrest of a young man on charges that he fraudulently impersonated the well-known filmmaker Mohsen Makhmalbaf—as the basis for a stunning, multilayered investigation into movies, identity, artistic creation, and existence, in which the real people from the case play themselves.
Where was Close-Up filmed?
- Tehran, Iran, Tehran – Hossein Sabzian is arrested on the street after the Kimia Cinema incident; opening sequences of the film. The actual neighborhood where the real-life incident occurred, providing documentary authenticity as Kiarostami films the genuine locations where Sabzian impersonated Kiarostami himself
- Tehran, Iran, Tehran – Trial sequences and legal proceedings where Sabzian's case is heard. The real courthouse where the actual trial took place, with genuine court officials and procedures filmed as documentary evidence of the legal case
- Tehran, Iran, Tehran – Sabzian visits in custody; prison interview sequences. The actual prison facility where Sabzian was held, filmed with authentic institutional setting and real prison officials