Close-Up (1991)

A film buff is arrested for passing himself off as a famous Iranian director, and the resulting trial becomes a searching meditation on cinema, identity and art, with the real participants playing themselves.

Abbas Kiarostami blends fiction and documentary in this 1990 drama, built around a real case in which a young man stood accused of impersonating filmmaker Mohsen Makhmalbaf. Rather than restage events, Kiarostami invites those involved—including defendant Hossain Sabzian and the Ahankhah family—to appear as themselves, blurring the line between performance and truth. The result is a singular crime drama that doubles as a profound inquiry into what movies mean to those who make and love them.