Abbas Kiarostami

"Kiarostami" redirects here. For the surname, see Kiarostami (surname).

Abbas Kiarostami
عباس کیارستمی
Kiarostami in 2013
Born(1940-06-22)22 June 1940
Tehran, Imperial State of Iran
Died4 July 2016(2016-07-04) (aged 76)
Paris, France
Burial placeTok Mazra'eh Cemetery, Lavasan, Shemiranat, Iran
Alma materUniversity of Tehran
Occupations
  • Filmmaker
  • photographer
  • producer
  • painter
  • poet
Years active1962–2016
Notable work
Style
MovementIranian New Wave
Spouse
Parvin Amir-Gholi
​
​
(m. 1969; div. 1982)​
[1]
Children
Signature

Abbas Kiarostami (Persian: عباس کیارستمی [ʔæbˌbɒːs kijɒːɾostæˈmi] ⓘ; 22 June 1940 – 4 July 2016) was an Iranian film director, screenwriter, poet, photographer, and film producer.[2][3][4] An active filmmaker from 1970, Kiarostami had been involved in the production of over forty films, including shorts and documentaries. Kiarostami attained critical acclaim for directing the Koker trilogy (1987–1994), Close-Up (1990), The Wind Will Carry Us (1999), and Taste of Cherry (1997), which was awarded the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival that year. In later works, Certified Copy (2010) and Like Someone in Love (2012), he filmed for the first time outside Iran: in Italy and Japan, respectively. His films Where Is the Friend's Home? (1987), Close-Up, and The Wind Will Carry Us were ranked among the 100 best foreign films in a 2018 critics' poll by BBC Culture.[5] Close-Up was also ranked one of the 50 greatest movies of all time in the famous decennial Sight & Sound poll conducted in 2012.[6][7]

Kiarostami had worked extensively as a screenwriter, film editor, art director, and producer and had designed credit titles and publicity material. He was also a poet, photographer, painter, illustrator, and graphic designer. He was part of a generation of filmmakers in the Iranian New Wave, a Persian cinema movement that started in the late 1960s and emphasized the use of poetic dialogue and allegorical storytelling dealing with political and philosophical issues.[8]

Kiarostami had a reputation for using child protagonists, for documentary-style narrative films,[9] for stories that take place in rural villages, and for conversations that unfold inside cars, using stationary mounted cameras. He is also known for his use of Persian poetry in the dialogue, titles, and themes of his films. Kiarostami's films contain a notable degree of ambiguity, an unusual mixture of simplicity and complexity, and often a mix of fictional and documentary elements. The concepts of change and continuity, in addition to the themes of life and death, play a major role in Kiarostami's works.

  1. ^ دادخواهی بر سر میراث فرهنگی کیارستمی
  2. ^ Panel of critics (14 November 2003). "The world's 40 best directors". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 23 February 2007.
  3. ^ Karen Simonian (2002). "Abbas Kiarostami Films Featured at Wexner Center" (PDF). Wexner center for the art. Archived from the original (PDF) on 10 July 2007. Retrieved 23 February 2007.
  4. ^ "2002 Ranking for Film Directors". British Film Institute. 2002. Archived from the original on 13 October 2018. Retrieved 23 February 2007.
  5. ^ "The 100 greatest foreign-language films".
  6. ^ "Critics' top 100 | BFI". Archived from the original on 7 February 2016.
  7. ^ "Directors' top 100 | BFI". Archived from the original on 9 February 2016.
  8. ^ Mathew, Shaj (2021). "Ekphrastic Temporality". New Literary History. 52 (2): 239–260. doi:10.1353/nlh.2021.0011. S2CID 241183294. Project MUSE 802090.
  9. ^ "Abbas Kiarostami Biography". Firouzan Film. 2004. Archived from the original on 21 March 2008. Retrieved 23 February 2007.