Taste of Cherry, by internationally-acclaimed Iranian film director Abbas Kiarostami, is to be shown on Australian television by the Special Broadcasting Services network on April 22. This poetic and essentially optimistic film recounts the last day in the life of an increasingly desperate middle-aged man contemplating suicide. The man--Mister Badii--drives around the outskirts of Tehran in an attempt to find someone who will assist him end his life. Badii encounters various people, including an Afghani refugee, a young soldier from Kurdistan and an old Turkish man.

Kiarostami who began making films in 1969 has made 24 films, including documentaries and feature-length fiction works. He also wrote the screenplay for The White Balloon and has been involved in the production of several other superb Iranian films.

Taste of Cherry, which has not been released commercially in Australia, shared the Golden Palm award at Cannes Film Festival in 1997, won the Boston Society of Film Critics Awards in 1998 and has been nominated as Best Foreign Language Film for this year's Chicago Film Critics Association Awards. It will be screened on SBS Television at 9.30pm on Thursday April 22 (30 minutes earlier in South Australia).