TEHRAN -- Brazilian actor 
Wagner Moura, an Oscar nominee for The Secret Agent, is set to star in a Portuguese-language reinterpretation of Abbas Kiarostami’s Palme d’Or-winning film Taste of Cherry, directed by Argentine filmmaker Lisandro Alonso.
The project, provisionally titled The Scent of the Pitanga (O Aroma da Pitanga), reimagines Kiarostami’s 1997 film, which won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival. 
Produced by Vania Catani’s Bananeira Filmes, in collaboration with Cunhã Porã and Paris Entretenimento, the Brazilian production is in post-production, with completion planned for early 2027.
The film relocates the original story of a middle-aged man driving around the outskirts of Tehran and asking strangers for help with a deeply personal plan to a Brazilian setting. The title refers to pitanga, a tropical fruit native to the region, signaling a reinterpretation rather than a scene-by-scene remake.
Ahmad Kiarostami, the director’s son and an executive producer on the project, said he initially needed time to come to terms with the idea of revisiting his father’s celebrated work.
Once he accepted the concept, however, he gave Alonso creative freedom, describing Taste of Cherry as a universal story that transcends geography and time.
Kiarostami said he did not necessarily view the new film as part of his father’s body of work, but believed Alonso possessed the sensitivity and artistic courage needed to approach the material without following conventional cinematic rules.
Catani described the production 
as a modest tribute by filmmakers who admire Kiarostami’s cinema, expressing hope that the project would encourage younger audiences to discover his wider filmography.
The film has a reported budget of $1.8 million and was shot in Palmas, the capital of Brazil’s Tocantins state.
The project also coincides with renewed attention to Kiarostami’s legacy in Brazil. Ahmad Kiarostami is scheduled to participate in a discussion with Alonso and Catani at the Museum of Image and Sound (MIS) in São Paulo on October 24, during the 50th São Paulo International Film Festival, known as Mostra.
The program includes screenings of two late works by Kiarostami: the short film Take Me Home and 24 Frames, which explores the filmmaker’s longstanding interest in photography.
MIS is also hosting STEPS – Photographs by Abbas Kiarostami, an exhibition of 60 black-and-white photographs of staircases captured by the director in different parts of the world.
The Brazilian reinterpretation offers a new entry point into Kiarostami’s cinema, preserving the original film’s existential questions while placing them within a different cultural landscape.