The Kiarostami Foundation is pleased to announce Negah, its newest initiative.

نگاه — Persian for gaze — is a curated collection of personal letters. Each letter is written by a thoughtful voice to one specific person of their choosing: someone they love or have loved, someone they have hopes for, a younger version of themselves. The letters are not statements or positions. They are letters — careful, unhurried, meant to mean something not only today but years from now.

Writing on Negah is by invitation only. Reading is open to all. The first letters will be published once a small initial collection is complete.

Negah is launched in honor of Abbas Kiarostami — not because it is about him, but because of the spirit it makes room for, a spirit he lived. He once wrote:

I am weary of language —
the bitter tongue,
the harsh tongue,
the tongue of command,
the tongue of insinuation.
Speak to me in the language of signs.