Abbas Kiarostami
Iranian filmmaker, photographer, and poet, winner of the Palme d'Or and one of world cinema's most influential directors (1940–2016).
Read in context →At a glance
- Field
- filmmaking, photography, and poetry
- Honor
- Palme d'Or for 'Taste of Cherry' (1997)
- Key work
- the Koker trilogy
- Early career
- the Kanun
Biography
Abbas Kiarostami (1940–2016), born in Tehran, is one of the greatest filmmakers in the history of cinema and the standard-bearer of the Iranian New Wave on the world stage. He began his career at the Institute for the Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults (Kanun), then created a spare, minimalist style on the border of documentary and fiction with films such as 'Where Is the Friend's House?', 'And Life Goes On,' and 'Through the Olive Trees' (the Koker trilogy). In 1997 he won (shared) the Palme d'Or at Cannes for 'Taste of Cherry,' centered on a man seeking to end his own life. Kiarostami was also a poet and photographer and, in his final years, made films outside Iran as well. The contested point is that his global standing was never uniform: Western admirers hail him as a genius, but some domestic and foreign critics have argued that his cinema appeals more to festival taste and the Western intellectual viewer than to the ordinary Iranian audience — a debate that persists.
Related entities
Sources
- Encyclopaedia Iranica, "Kiārostami, ʿAbbās"
- Alberto Elena, The Cinema of Abbas Kiarostami (2005)
- Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Abbas Kiarostami"