Acclaimed Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami has fallen foul of the public in Venice after his latest picture “Shirin” screened at the annual film festival. While some critics were relatively kind to one of “arthouse” cinema’s leading lights, the public was less forgiving.

On the “Give Us Our Money Back!” notice board outside the festival, where people vent their spleens with small notes containing their rants/musings, “Shirin” features far more than any other film so far as Venice reaches its halfway stage.

He was slammed for being pretentious, wasting audience’s time and producing a truly boring piece of cinema. One cartoon features the drawing of a man watching the movie trying to hang himself.

“Shirin” is 92 minutes long. It is a sequence of shots of Iranian women’s faces as they watch a film which the audience never sees. Clever device? Perhaps, but many felt that 114 actresses including French star Juliette Binoche, was a little, shall we say, over the top.