Abbas Kiarostami Explained

Abbas Kiarostami
Native Name Lang:fa
Birth Date:22 June 1940
Birth Place:Tehran, Imperial State of Iran
Death Place:Paris, France
Burial Place:Tok Mazra'eh Cemetery, Lavasan, Shemiranat, Iran
Alma Mater:University of Tehran
Movement:Iranian New Wave
Spouse:[1]
Years Active:1962–2016
Signature:Abbas Kiarostami signature.svg

Abbas Kiarostami (Persian: عباس کیارستمی in Persian pronounced as /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.

Early life and background

Kiarostami was born in Tehran. His first artistic experience was painting, which he continued into his late teens, winning a painting competition at the age of 18 shortly before he left home to study at the University of Tehran School of Fine Arts. He majored in painting and graphic design and supported his studies by working as a traffic policeman.[10]

As a painter, designer, and illustrator, Kiarostami worked in advertising in the 1960s, designing posters and creating commercials. Between 1962 and 1966, he shot around 150 advertisements for Iranian television. In the late 1960s, he began creating credit titles for films (including Gheysar by Masoud Kimiai) and illustrating children's books.[11]

Film career

See also: Abbas Kiarostami filmography.

1970s

In 1970 when the Iranian New Wave began with Dariush Mehrjui's film Gāv, Kiarostami helped set up a filmmaking department at the Institute for Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults (Kanun) in Tehran. Its debut production, and Kiarostami's first film, was the twelve-minute The Bread and Alley (1970), a neo-realistic short film about a schoolboy's confrontation with an aggressive dog. Breaktime followed in 1972. The department became one of Iran's most noted film studios, producing not only Kiarostami's films but acclaimed Persian films such as The Runner and Bashu, the Little Stranger.

In the 1970s, Kiarostami pursued an individualistic style of film making.[12] When discussing his first film, he stated:

Bread and Alley was my first experience in cinema and I must say a very difficult one. I had to work with a very young child, a dog, and an unprofessional crew except for the cinematographer, who was nagging and complaining all the time. Well, the cinematographer, in a sense, was right because I did not follow the conventions of film making that he had become accustomed to.

Following The Experience (1973), Kiarostami released The Traveler (Mossafer) in 1974. The Traveler tells the story of Qassem Julayi, a troubled and troublesome boy from a small Iranian city. Intent on attending a football match in far-off Tehran, he scams his friends and neighbors to raise money, and journeys to the stadium in time for the game, only to meet with an ironic twist of fate. In addressing the boy's determination to reach his goal, alongside his indifference to the effects of his amoral actions, the film examined human behavior and the balance of right and wrong. It furthered Kiarostami's reputation for realism, diegetic simplicity, and stylistic complexity, as well as his fascination with physical and spiritual journeys.[13]

In 1975, Kiarostami directed two short films So Can I and Two Solutions for One Problem. In early 1976, he released Colors, followed by the fifty-four-minute film A Wedding Suit, a story about three teenagers coming into conflict over a suit for a wedding.[14] [15]

Kiarostami then directed Report (1977). With a 112-minute runtime, it was considerably longer than his previous work. The film revolved around the life of a tax collector accused of accepting bribes; suicide was among its themes. In 1979, he produced and directed First Case, Second Case.[16]

1980s

In the early 1980s, Kiarostami directed several short films including Toothache (1980), Orderly or Disorderly (1981), and The Chorus (1982). In 1983, he directed Fellow Citizen. It was not until his release of Where Is the Friend's Home? (1987) that he began to gain recognition outside Iran. These films created the basis of his later productions.

The film tells a simple account of a conscientious eight-year-old schoolboy's quest to return his friend's notebook in a neighboring village lest his friend be expelled from school. The traditional beliefs of Iranian rural people are portrayed. The film has been noted for its poetic use of the Iranian rural landscape and its realism, both important elements of Kiarostami's work. Kiarostami made the film from a child's point of view.[17] [18]

Where Is the Friend's Home?, And Life Goes On (1992) (also known as Life and Nothing More), and Through the Olive Trees (1994) are described by critics as the Koker trilogy, because all three films feature the village of Koker in northern Iran. The films also relate to the 1990 Manjil–Rudbar earthquake, in which 40,000 people died. Kiarostami uses the themes of life, death, change, and continuity to connect the films. The trilogy was successful in France in the 1990s and other Western European countries such as the Netherlands, Sweden, Germany and Finland.[19] But, Kiarostami did not consider the three films to comprise a trilogy. He suggested that the last two titles plus Taste of Cherry (1997) comprise a trilogy, given their common theme of the preciousness of life.[20] In 1987, Kiarostami was involved in the screenwriting of The Key, which he edited but did not direct. In 1989, he released Homework.

1990s

Kiarostami's first film of the decade was Close-Up (1990), which narrates the story of the real-life trial of a man who impersonated film-maker Mohsen Makhmalbaf, conning a family into believing they would star in his new film. The family suspects theft as the motive for this charade, but the impersonator, Hossein Sabzian, argues that his motives were more complex. The part-documentary, part-staged film examines Sabzian's moral justification for usurping Makhmalbaf's identity, questioning his ability to sense his cultural and artistic flair.[21] [22] Ranked No. 42 in British Film Institute's The Top 50 Greatest Films of All Time, Close-Up received praise from directors such as Quentin Tarantino, Martin Scorsese, Werner Herzog, Jean-Luc Godard, and Nanni Moretti[23] and was released across Europe.[24]

In 1992, Kiarostami directed Life, and Nothing More..., regarded by critics as the second film of the Koker trilogy. The film follows a father and his young son as they drive from Tehran to Koker in search of two young boys who they fear might have perished in the 1990 earthquake. As the father and son travel through the devastated landscape, they meet earthquake survivors forced to carry on with their lives amid disaster.[25] [26] [27] That year Kiarostami won a Prix Roberto Rossellini, the first professional film award of his career, for his direction of the film. The last film of the so-called Koker trilogy was Through the Olive Trees (1994), which expands a peripheral scene from Life and Nothing More into the central drama.[28] Critics such as Adrian Martin have called the style of filmmaking in the Koker trilogy as "diagrammatical", linking the zig-zagging patterns in the landscape and the geometry of forces of life and the world.[29] [30] A flashback of the zigzag path in Life and Nothing More... (1992) in turn triggers the spectator's memory of the previous film, Where Is the Friend's Home? from 1987, shot before the earthquake. This symbolically links to the post-earthquake reconstruction in Through the Olive Trees in 1994. In 1995, Miramax Films released Through the Olive Trees in the US theaters.

Kiarostami next wrote the screenplays for The Journey and The White Balloon (1995), for his former assistant Jafar Panahi. Between 1995 and 1996, he was involved in the production of Lumière and Company, a collaboration with 40 other film directors.

Kiarostami won the Palme d'Or (Golden Palm) award at the Cannes Film Festival for Taste of Cherry.[31] It is the drama of a man, Mr. Badii, determined to commit suicide. The film involved themes such as morality, the legitimacy of the act of suicide, and the meaning of compassion.[32]

Kiarostami directed The Wind Will Carry Us in 1999, which won the Grand Jury Prize (Silver Lion) at the Venice International Film Festival. The film contrasted rural and urban views on the dignity of labor, addressing themes of gender equality and the benefits of progress, by means of a stranger's sojourn in a remote Kurdish village.[19] An unusual feature of the movie is that many of the characters are heard but not seen; at least thirteen to fourteen speaking characters in the film are never seen.[33]

2000s

In 2000, at the San Francisco Film Festival award ceremony, Kiarostami was awarded the Akira Kurosawa Prize for lifetime achievement in directing, but surprised everyone by giving it away to veteran Iranian actor Behrooz Vossoughi for his contribution to Iranian cinema.[34] [35]

In 2001, Kiarostami and his assistant, Seifollah Samadian, traveled to Kampala, Uganda at the request of the United Nations International Fund for Agricultural Development, to film a documentary about programs assisting Ugandan orphans. He stayed for ten days and made ABC Africa. The trip was originally intended as research in preparation for the filming, but Kiarostami ended up editing the entire film from the video footage shot there.[36] The high number of orphans in Uganda has resulted from the deaths of parents in the AIDS epidemic.

Time Out editor and National Film Theatre chief programmer, Geoff Andrew, said in referring to the film: "Like his previous four features, this film is not about death but life-and-death: how they're linked, and what attitude we might adopt with regard to their symbiotic inevitability."[37]

The following year, Kiarostami directed Ten, revealing an unusual method of filmmaking and abandoning many scriptwriting conventions.[33] Kiarostami focused on the socio-political landscape of Iran. The images are seen through the eyes of one woman as she drives through the streets of Tehran over a period of several days. Her journey is composed of ten conversations with various passengers, which include her sister, a hitchhiking prostitute, and a jilted bride and her demanding young son. This style of filmmaking was praised by a number of critics.

A. O. Scott in The New York Times wrote that Kiarostami, "in addition to being perhaps the most internationally admired Iranian filmmaker of the past decade, is also among the world masters of automotive cinema...He understands the automobile as a place of reflection, observation and, above all, talk."[38]

In 2003, Kiarostami directed Five, a poetic feature with no dialogue or characterization. It consists of five long shots of nature which are single-take sequences, shot with a hand-held DV camera, along the shores of the Caspian Sea. Although the film lacks a clear storyline, Geoff Andrew argues that the film is "more than just pretty pictures". He adds, "Assembled in order, they comprise a kind of abstract or emotional narrative arc, which moves evocatively from separation and solitude to community, from motion to rest, near-silence to sound and song, light to darkness and back to light again, ending on a note of rebirth and regeneration."He notes the degree of artifice concealed behind the apparent simplicity of the imagery.[39] [40]

In 2005, Kiarostami contributed the central section to Tickets, a portmanteau film set on a train traveling through Italy. The other segments were directed by Ken Loach and Ermanno Olmi.

In 2008, Kiarostami directed the feature Shirin, which features close-ups of many notable Iranian actresses and the French actress Juliette Binoche as they watch a film based on a partly mythological Persian romance tale of Khosrow and Shirin, with themes of female self-sacrifice.[41] [42] The film has been described as "a compelling exploration of the relationship between image, sound and female spectatorship."[40]

That summer, he directed Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's opera Così fan tutte conducted by Christophe Rousset at Festival d'Aix-en-Provence starring with William Shimell. But the following year's performances at the English National Opera was impossible to direct because of refusal of permission to travel abroad.[43]

2010s

Certified Copy (2010), again starring Juliette Binoche, was made in Tuscany and was Kiarostami's first film to be shot and produced outside Iran.[40] The story of an encounter between a British man and a French woman, it was entered in competition for the Palme d'Or in the 2010 Cannes Film Festival. Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian describes the film as an "intriguing oddity", and said, "Certified Copy is the deconstructed portrait of a marriage, acted with well-intentioned fervour by Juliette Binoche, but persistently baffling, contrived, and often simply bizarre – a highbrow misfire of the most peculiar sort." He concluded that the film is "unmistakably an example of Kiarostami's compositional technique, though not a successful example."[44] Roger Ebert, however, praised the film, noting that "Kiarostami is rather brilliant in the way he creates offscreen spaces."[45] Binoche won the Best Actress Award at Cannes for her performance in the film. Kiarostami's penultimate film, Like Someone in Love, set and shot in Japan, received largely positive reviews from critics.

Kiarostami's final film 24 Frames was released posthumously in 2017. An experimental film based on 24 of Kiarostami's still photographs, 24 Frames enjoyed a highly positive critical reception, with a Rotten Tomatoes score of 92%.[46]

Film festival work

Kiarostami was a jury member at numerous film festivals, most notably the Cannes Film Festival in 1993, 2002 and 2005. He was also the president of the Caméra d'Or Jury in Cannes Film Festival 2005. He was announced as the president of the Cinéfondation and short film sections of the 2014 Cannes Film Festival.

Other representatives include the Venice Film Festival in 1985, the Locarno International Film Festival in 1990, the San Sebastian International Film Festival in 1996, the São Paulo International Film Festival in 2004, the Capalbio Cinema Festival in 2007 (in which he was president of the jury), and the Küstendorf Film and Music Festival in 2011.[47] [48] [49] He also made regular appearances at many other film festivals across Europe, including the Estoril Film Festival in Portugal.

Cinematic style

See main article: Cinematic style of Abbas Kiarostami.

Individualism

Though Kiarostami has been compared to Satyajit Ray, Vittorio De Sica, Éric Rohmer, and Jacques Tati, his films exhibit a singular style, often employing techniques of his own invention.

During the filming of The Bread and Alley in 1970, Kiarostami had major differences with his experienced cinematographer about how to film the boy and the attacking dog. While the cinematographer wanted separate shots of the boy approaching, a close-up of his hand as he enters the house and closes the door, followed by a shot of the dog, Kiarostami believed that if the three scenes could be captured as a whole it would have a more profound impact in creating tension over the situation. That one shot took around forty days to complete until Kiarostami was fully content with the scene. Kiarostami later commented that the breaking of scenes would have disrupted the rhythm and content of the film's structure, preferring to let the scene flow as one.

Unlike other directors, Kiarostami showed no interest in staging extravagant combat scenes or complicated chase scenes in large-scale productions, instead attempting to mold the medium of film to his own specifications. Kiarostami appeared to have settled on his style with the Koker trilogy, which included a myriad of references to his own film material, connecting common themes and subject matter between each of the films. Stephen Bransford has contended that Kiarostami's films do not contain references to the work of other directors, but are fashioned in such a manner that they are self-referenced. Bransford believes his films are often fashioned into an ongoing dialectic with one film reflecting on and partially demystifying an earlier film.[28]

He continued experimenting with new modes of filming, using different directorial methods and techniques. A case in point is Ten, which was filmed in a moving automobile in which Kiarostami was not present. He gave suggestions to the actors about what to do, and a camera placed on the dashboard filmed them while they drove around Tehran.[50] [51] The camera was allowed to roll, capturing the faces of the people involved during their daily routine, using a series of extreme-close shots. Ten was an experiment that used digital cameras to virtually eliminate the director. This new direction towards a digital micro-cinema is defined as a micro-budget filmmaking practice, allied with a digital production basis.[52]

Kiarostami's cinema offers a different definition of film. According to film professors such as Jamsheed Akrami of William Paterson University, Kiarostami consistently tried to redefine film by forcing the increased involvement of the audience. In his later years, he also progressively trimmed the timespan within his films. Akrami thinks that this reduces filmmaking from a collective endeavor to a purer, more basic form of artistic expression.[53]

Fiction and non-fiction

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 (docufiction). Kiarostami has stated, "We can never get close to the truth except through lying."[54]

The boundary between fiction and non-fiction is significantly reduced in Kiarostami's cinema.[55] The French philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy, writing about Kiarostami, and in particular Life and Nothing More..., has argued that his films are neither quite fiction nor quite documentary. Life and Nothing More..., he argues, is neither representation nor reportage, but rather "evidence":

[I]t all looks like reporting, but everything underscores (indique à l'évidence) that it is the fiction of a documentary (in fact, Kiarostami shot the film several months after the earthquake), and that it is rather a document about "fiction": not in the sense of imagining the unreal, but in the very specific and precise sense of the technique, of the art of constructing images. For the image by means of which, each time, each opens a world and precedes himself in it (s'y précède) is not pregiven (donnée toute faite) (as are those of dreams, phantasms or bad films): it is to be invented, cut and edited. Thus it is evidence, insofar as, if one day I happen to look at my street on which I walk up and down ten times a day, I construct for an instant a new evidence of my street.[56]

For Jean-Luc Nancy, this notion of cinema as "evidence", rather than as documentary or imagination, is tied to the way Kiarostami deals with life-and-death (cf. the remark by Geoff Andrew on ABC Africa, cited above, to the effect that Kiarostami's films are not about death but about life-and-death):

Existence resists the indifference of life-and-death, it lives beyond mechanical "life," it is always its own mourning, and its own joy. It becomes figure, image. It does not become alienated in images, but it is presented there: the images are the evidence of its existence, the objectivity of its assertion. This thought—which, for me, is the very thought of this film [''Life and Nothing More...'']—is a difficult thought, perhaps the most difficult. It's a slow thought, always underway, fraying a path so that the path itself becomes thought. It is that which frays images so that images become this thought, so that they become the evidence of this thought—and not to "represent" it.[57]

In other words, wanting to accomplish more than just represent life and death as opposing forces, but rather to illustrate the way in which each element of nature is inextricably linked, Kiarostami devised a cinema that does more than just present the viewer with the documentable "facts," but neither is it simply a matter of artifice. Because "existence" means more than simply life, it is projective, containing an irreducibly fictive element, but in this "being more than" life, it is therefore contaminated by mortality. Nancy is giving a clue, in other words, toward the interpretation of Kiarostami's statement that lying is the only way to truth.[58] [59]

Themes of life and death

The concepts of change and continuity, in addition to the themes of life and death, play a major role in Kiarostami's works. In the Koker trilogy, these themes play a central role. As illustrated in the aftermath of the 1990 Manjil–Rudbar earthquake disaster, they also represent the power of human resilience to overcome and defy destruction.[60]

Unlike the Koker films, which convey an instinctual thirst for survival, Taste of Cherry explores the fragility of life and focuses on how precious it is.[20]

Some film critics believe that the assemblage of light versus dark scenes in Kiarostami's film grammar, such as in Taste of Cherry and The Wind Will Carry Us, suggests the mutual existence of life with its endless possibilities, and death as a factual moment of anyone's life.[61]

Poetry and imagery

Ahmad Karimi-Hakkak, of the University of Maryland, argues that one aspect of Kiarostami's cinematic style is that he is able to capture the essence of Persian poetry and create poetic imagery within the landscape of his films. In several of his movies such as Where is the Friend's Home and The Wind Will Carry Us, classical Persian poetry is directly quoted in the film, highlighting the artistic link and intimate connection between them. This in turn reflects on the connection between the past and present, between continuity and change.[62] The characters recite poems mainly from classical Persian poet Omar Khayyám or modern Persian poets such as Sohrab Sepehri and Forough Farrokhzad. One scene in The Wind Will Carry Us has a long shot of a wheat field with rippling golden crops through which the doctor, accompanied by the filmmaker, is riding his scooter in a twisting road. In response to the comment that the other world is a better place than this one, the doctor recites this poem of Khayyam:[61]

They promise of houries in heavenBut I would say wine is betterTake the present to the promisesA drum sounds melodious from distance

It has been argued that the creative merit of Kiarostami's adaptation of Sohrab Sepehri and Forough Farrokhzad's poems extends the domain of textual transformation. Adaptation is defined as the transformation of a prior to a new text. Sima Daad of the University of Washington contends that Kiarostami's adaptation arrives at the theoretical realm of adaptation by expanding its limit from inter-textual potential to trans-generic potential.[63]

Spirituality

Kiarostami's "complex" sound-images and philosophical approach have caused frequent comparisons with "mystical" filmmakers such as Andrei Tarkovsky and Robert Bresson. While acknowledging substantial cultural differences, much of Western critical writing about Kiarostami positions him as the Iranian equivalent of such directors, by virtue of a similarly austere, "spiritual" poetics and moral commitment.[64] Some draw parallels between certain imagery in Kiarostami's films with that of Sufi concepts.[65]

While most English-language writers, such as David Sterritt and the Spanish film professor Alberto Elena, interpret Kiarostami's films as spiritual, other critics, including David Walsh and Hamish Ford, have rated the influence of spirituality in his films as lower.[20] [64] [65]

Poetry, art and photography

Kiarostami, along with Jean Cocteau, Satyajit Ray, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Derek Jarman, and Alejandro Jodorowsky, was a filmmaker who expressed himself in other genres, such as poetry, set designs, painting, or photography. They expressed their interpretation of the world and their understanding of our preoccupations and identities.[66]

Kiarostami was a noted photographer and poet. A bilingual collection of more than 200 of his poems, Walking with the Wind, was published by Harvard University Press. His photographic work includes Untitled Photographs, a collection of over thirty photographs, mostly of snow landscapes, taken in his hometown Tehran, between 1978 and 2003. In 1999, he also published a collection of his poems.[67] Kiarostami also produced Mozart's opera Così fan tutte, which premiered in Aix-en-Provence in 2003 before being performed at the English National Opera in London in 2004.[40]

Riccardo Zipoli, from the Ca' Foscari University of Venice, has studied the relations and interconnections between Kiarostami's poems and his films. The results of the analysis reveal how Kiarostami's treatment of "uncertain reality" is similar in his poems and films.[68] Kiarostami's poetry is reminiscent of the later nature poems of the Persian painter-poet Sohrab Sepehri. On the other hand, the succinct allusion to philosophical truths without the need for deliberation, the non-judgmental tone of the poetic voice, and the structure of the poem—absence of personal pronouns, adverbs, or over-reliance on adjectives—as well as the lines containing a kigo (季語, a "season word") gives much of this poetry a haikuesque characteristic.[66]

Kiarostami's three volumes of original verse, plus his selections from classical and contemporary Persian poets, including Nima, Hafez, Rumi and Saadi, were translated into English in 2015 and were published in bilingual (Persian/English) editions by Sticking Place Books in New York.

Personal life

In 1969, Kiarostami married Parvin Amir-Gholi. They had two sons, Ahmad and Bahman. They divorced in 1982.

Kiarostami was one of the few directors who remained in Iran after the 1979 revolution, when many of his peers fled the country. He believes that it was one of the most important decisions of his career. His permanent base in Iran and his national identity have consolidated his ability as a filmmaker:

When you take a tree that is rooted in the ground and transfer it from one place to another, the tree will no longer bear fruit. And if it does, the fruit will not be as good as it was in its original place. This is a rule of nature. I think if I had left my country, I would be the same as the tree.[69]

Kiarostami frequently wore dark spectacles or sunglasses, which he required because of a sensitivity to light.[70]

Illness and death

In March 2016, Kiarostami was hospitalized due to intestinal bleeding and reportedly went into a coma[71] after undergoing two operations. Sources, including a Ministry of Health and Medical Education spokesman, reported that Kiarostami was suffering from gastrointestinal cancer.[71] [72] On 3 April 2016, Reza Paydar, the director of Kiarostami's medical team, made a statement denying that the filmmaker had cancer.[72] However, in late June he left Iran for treatment in a Paris hospital,[73] where he died on 4 July 2016.[74] The week before his death, Kiarostami had been invited to join the Academy Awards in Hollywood as part of efforts to increase the diversity of its Oscar judges.[75] Ali Ahani, Iran's ambassador to France stated that Kiarostami's body would be transferred to Iran to be buried at Behesht-e Zahra cemetery.[76] However, it was later announced that his body would be buried in Lavasan, a resort town about northeast of Tehran, based on his own will, after it was flown back to Tehran from Paris.[77] His body was returned to Tehran's Imam Khomeini International Airport on 8 July 2016, while a crowd of Iranian film directors, actors, actresses and other artists were in Tehran airport to pay their respects.[78]

Mohammad Shirvani, a fellow filmmaker and close friend, quoted Kiarostami on his Facebook wall on 8 June 2016: "I do not believe I could stand and direct any more films. They [the medical team] destroyed it [his digestive system]." After this comment, a campaign was set up by Iranians on both Twitter and Facebook to investigate the possibility of medical error during Kiarostami's procedure. However, Ahmad Kiarostami, his eldest son, denied any medical error in his father's treatment after Shirvani's comment and said that his father's health was no cause for alarm. After Kiarostami's death, Head of the Iranian Medical Council Dr. Alireza Zali sent a letter to his French counterpart, Patrick Bouet, urging him to send Kiarostami's medical file to Iran for further investigation.[79] Nine days after Kiarostami's death, on 13 July 2016, his family issued a formal complaint of medical maltreatment through Kiarostami's personal doctor. Dariush Mehrjui, another famous Iranian cinema director, also criticized the medical team that treated Kiarostami and demanded legal action.

Reactions

Martin Scorsese said he was "deeply shocked and saddened" by the news.[80] Oscar-winning Iranian film-maker Asghar Farhadi – who had been due to fly to Paris to visit his friend – said he was "very sad, in total shock". Mohsen Makhmalbaf echoed the sentiment, saying Iran's cinema owes its global reputation to his fellow director, but that this visibility did not translate into greater visibility for his work in his homeland. "Kiarostami gave the Iranian cinema the international credibility that it has today," he told The Guardian. "But his films were unfortunately not seen as much in Iran. He changed the world's cinema; he freshened it and humanized it in contrast with Hollywood's rough version."[74] Persian mystic and poet Jalal al-Din Rumi's 22nd niece Esin Celebi also expressed her condolences over the demise of Kiarostami in a separate message. Iran's representative office at the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, UNESCO also opened a memorial book for signature to honour Kiarostami.[81]

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said on Twitter that the director's "different and profound attitude towards life and his invitation to peace and friendship" would be a "lasting achievement."[82] Foreign Minister Mohammad-Javad Zarif also said Kiarostami's death was a loss for international cinema. In a statement, French President François Hollande praised the director for forging "close artistic ties and deep friendships" with France.

Media, such as The New York Times, CNN, The Guardian, The Huffington Post, The Independent, Associated Press, Euronews and Le Monde also reacted to Kiarostami's death. The New York Times wrote: "Abbas Kiarostami, Acclaimed Iranian Filmmaker, Dies at 76"[83] and Peter Bradshaw paid tribute to Kiarostami: "a sophisticated, self-possessed master of cinematic poetry"[84]

The crowd that had gathered for this service in Paris held a vigil by the River Seine. They then allowed the waves of the Seine to carry away photos of Kiarostami that the crowd had left floating on the river. It was a symbolic moment of saying goodbye to a film director that many Iranians have come to passionately appreciate.

Funeral

Artists, cultural authorities, government officials, and the Iranian people gathered to say goodbye to Kiarostami on 10 July in an emotional funeral, six days after his death in France. The ceremony was held at the Center for the Intellectual Education of Children, where he began his film-making career some 40 years before.[85] Attendees held banners with the titles of his movies and pictures of his most famous posters, as they praised the support Kiarostami contributed to culture, and particularly to filmmaking in Iran. The ceremony was hosted by famous Iranian actor Parviz Parastooie, and included speeches by painter Aidin Aghdashlou and prize-winning film director Asghar Farhadi, who stressed his professional abilities. He was later buried in a private ceremony in the northern Tehran town of Lavasan.[86] [87] [88]

Sexual assault and plagiarism allegations

In August 2020, Mania Akbari, who starred in Ten, accused Kiarostami of plagiarism, stating that he edited private footage shot by Akbari into the film without her permission.[89] [90] In her 2019 short film Letter to My Mother, Amina Maher, daughter of Akbari, who also appeared in Ten, said that her scenes in Ten were filmed without her knowledge.[91] [92] In 2022, Akbari and Maher revealed that they had been asking distributor to halt circulation of the film, to which MK2 has yet to respond. Consequently, the British Film Institute removed Ten from a Kiarostami retrospective.[93] [94]

In 2022, Akbari accused Kiarostami of raping her twice, in Tehran when she was 25 and he was about 60, and in London after Ten had premiered.[93] [94]

Reception and criticism

Kiarostami has received worldwide acclaim for his work from both audiences and critics, and, in 1999, he was voted the most important Iranian film director of the 1990s by two international critics' polls.[95] Four of his films were placed in the top six of Cinematheque Ontario's Best of the '90s poll.[96] He has gained recognition from film theorists, critics, as well as peers such as Jean-Luc Godard, Nanni Moretti, and Chris Marker. Akira Kurosawa said of Kiarostami's films: "Words cannot describe my feelings about them ... When Satyajit Ray passed on, I was very depressed. But after seeing Kiarostami's films, I thanked God for giving us just the right person to take his place."[97] Critically acclaimed directors such as Martin Scorsese have commented that "Kiarostami represents the highest level of artistry in the cinema."[98] The Austrian director Michael Haneke had admired the work of Abbas Kiarostami as among the best of any living director.[99] In 2006, The Guardians panel of critics ranked Kiarostami as the best contemporary non-American film director.[100]

Critics such as Jonathan Rosenbaum have argued that "there's no getting around the fact that the movies of Abbas Kiarostami divide audiences—in this country, in his native Iran, and everywhere else they're shown."[26] Rosenbaum argues that disagreements and controversy over Kiarostami's movies have arisen from his style of film-making because what in Hollywood would count as essential narrative information is frequently missing from Kiarostami's films. Camera placement, likewise, often defies standard audience expectations: in the closing sequences of Life and Nothing More and Through the Olive Trees, the audience is forced to imagine the dialogue and circumstances of important scenes. In Homework and Close-Up, parts of the soundtrack are masked or silenced. Critics have argued that the subtlety of Kiarostami's cinematic expression is largely resistant to critical analysis.[101]

While Kiarostami has won significant acclaim in Europe for several of his films, the Iranian government has refused to permit the screening of his films, to which he responded "The government has decided not to show any of my films for the past 10 years... I think they don't understand my films and so prevent them being shown just in case there is a message they don't want to get out".[98]

In the wake of the September 11 attacks, Kiarostami was refused a visa to attend the New York Film Festival.[102] [103] The festival director, Richard Peña, who had invited him said, "It's a terrible sign of what's happening in my country today that no one seems to realize or care about the kind of negative signal this sends out to the entire Muslim world".[98] The Finnish film director Aki Kaurismäki boycotted the festival in protest.[104] Kiarostami had been invited by the New York Film Festival, as well as Ohio University and Harvard University.[105]

In 2005, London Film School organized a workshop as well as the festival of Kiarostami's work, titled "Abbas Kiarostami: Visions of the Artist". Ben Gibson, Director of the London Film School, said, "Very few people have the creative and intellectual clarity to invent cinema from its most basic elements, from the ground up. We are very lucky to have the chance to see a master like Kiarostami thinking on his feet."[106] He was later made Honorary Associate.

In 2007, the Museum of Modern Art and MoMA PS1 co-organized a festival of the Kiarostami's work titled Abbas Kiarostami: Image Maker.[107]

Kiarostami and his cinematic style have been the subject of several books and three films, Opening Day of Close-Up (1996), directed by Nanni Moretti, Abbas Kiarostami: The Art of Living (2003), directed by Pat Collins and Fergus Daly, and (2014), directed by Bahman Maghsoudlou.

Kiarostami was a member of the advisory board of World Cinema Foundation. Founded by the director Martin Scorsese, its goal is to find and reconstruct world cinema films that have been long neglected.[108]

Selected honors and awards

See main article: List of awards won by Abbas Kiarostami.

Kiarostami has won the admiration of audiences and critics worldwide and received at least seventy awards up to the year 2000.[109] Here are some representatives:

Filmography

Feature films

YearFilmDirectorWriterNotes
1973The Experiencewritten with Amir Naderi
1974The Traveler
1976A Wedding Suitwritten with Parviz Davayi
1977The Report
1979First Case, Second Case
1983Fellow Citizendocumentary film
1984First Gradersdocumentary film
1987Where Is the Friend's Home?first film of the Koker trilogy
1987The Key
1989Homeworkdocumentary film
1990Close-Updocufiction film
1992Life, and Nothing More...second film of the Koker trilogy
alternatively titled And Life Goes On in English
1994Through the Olive Treesthird and final film of the Koker trilogy
1994Safaralternatively titled The Journey in English
1995The White Balloon
1997Taste of Cherry
1999Willow and Wind
1999The Wind Will Carry Us
2001ABC Africadocumentary film
2002The Deserted Stationstory concept by Kiarostami
2002Tendocufiction film
2003Crimson Gold
2003Five Dedicated to Ozudocumentary film
alternatively titled Five
200410 on Tendocumentary film on Kiarostami's own films, especially Ten
2005Ticketsdirected with Ermanno Olmi and Ken Loach
written with Ermanno Olmi and Paul Laverty
2006Men at Workinitial story concept by Kiarostami
2006Víctor Erice–Abbas Kiarostami: Correspondencescollaboration with noted director Víctor Erice
also written and directed by Erice
2007Persian Carpetonly the Is There a Place to Approach? segment
one of 15 segments in Persian Carpet, in which each is by a different Iranian director
2008Shirin
2010Certified Copy
2012Like Someone in Love
2012Meeting Leila
2016Final Examposthumous, story concept by Kiarostami before his passing
also written by Adel Yaraghi, who directed
201724 Frames

Short films

YearFilmDirectorWriterNotes
1972Recess
1975Two Solutions for One Problem
1975So Can I
1976The Colours
1977Tribute to the Teachersdocumentary short
1977Jahan-nama Palacedocumentary short
1977How to Make Use of Leisure Time
1978Solutionalso called Solution No.1 in English
1980Driver
1980Orderly or Disorderly
1982The Chorus
1995Solution
1997The Birth of Light
1999Volte sempre, Abbas!
2005Roads of Kiarostami
2007Is There a Place to Approach?one of 15 segments in Persian Carpet, in which each is by a different Iranian director
2013The Girl in the Lemon Factoryalso written by Chiara Maranon, who directed
2014Seagull Eggsdocumentary short

Books by Kiarostami

See also

Bibliography

Notes and References

  1. https://www.irna.ir/news/83847868/%D8%AF%D8%A7%D8%AF%D8%AE%D9%88%D8%A7%D9%87%DB%8C-%D8%A8%D8%B1-%D8%B3%D8%B1-%D9%85%DB%8C%D8%B1%D8%A7%D8%AB-%D9%81%D8%B1%D9%87%D9%86%DA%AF%DB%8C-%DA%A9%DB%8C%D8%A7%D8%B1%D8%B3%D8%AA%D9%85%DB%8C دادخواهی بر سر میراث فرهنگی کیارستمی
  2. News: The world's 40 best directors. 23 February 2007. Panel of critics. The Guardian. London. 14 November 2003.
  3. Web site: Abbas Kiarostami Films Featured at Wexner Center. 23 February 2007. 2002. Karen Simonian. Wexner center for the art. https://web.archive.org/web/20070710175713/http://wexarts.org/info/press/db/87_nr-kiarostami_elec.pdf. 10 July 2007. dead.
  4. Web site: 2002 Ranking for Film Directors. 23 February 2007. 2002. British Film Institute. https://web.archive.org/web/20181013200533/http://old.bfi.org.uk/sightandsound/feature/63. 13 October 2018. dead.
  5. Web site: The 100 greatest foreign-language films.
  6. Web site: Critics' top 100 | BFI. https://web.archive.org/web/20160207035347/http://www.bfi.org.uk/films-tv-people/sightandsoundpoll2012/critics . dead . 7 February 2016 .
  7. Web site: Directors' top 100 | BFI. https://web.archive.org/web/20160209010504/http://www.bfi.org.uk/films-tv-people/sightandsoundpoll2012/directors . dead . 9 February 2016 .
  8. . Mathew . Shaj . Ekphrastic Temporality . New Literary History . 2021 . 52 . 2 . 239–260 . 10.1353/nlh.2021.0011 . 241183294 .
  9. Web site: Abbas Kiarostami Biography. 23 February 2007. 2004. Firouzan Film. 21 March 2008. https://web.archive.org/web/20080321011936/http://www.firouzanfilms.com/HallOfFame/Inductees/AbbasKiarostami.html. dead.
  10. News: The Paradox at the Heart of Abbas Kiarostami's Early Films. Brody. Richard. The New Yorker. 26 July 2019. 9 December 2019. 0028-792X.
  11. Web site: 10 x Ten: Kiarostami's journey. 23 February 2007. 2002. Ed Hayes. Open Democracy. https://web.archive.org/web/20070109164930/http://www.opendemocracy.net/arts-Film/article_815.jsp. 9 January 2007. dead.
  12. Web site: Notes on Close Up – Iranian Cinema: Past, Present and Future . 23 February 2007. 2002 . Hamid Dabashi . Strictly Film School . https://web.archive.org/web/20070217181716/http://www.filmref.com/journal2002.html . 17 February 2007. dead . dmy-all.
  13. Web site: Abbas Kiarostami Season. 23 February 2007. 2005. David Parkinson. BBC.
  14. Web site: Abbas Kiarostami Masterclass. 23 February 2007. Chris Payne. Channel 4. https://web.archive.org/web/20070308194412/http://www.channel4.com/film/reviews/feature.jsp?id=145506. 8 March 2007. dead.
  15. Web site: Films by Abbas Kiarostami. 1999. Stanford University.
  16. Web site: Abbas Kiarostami . https://web.archive.org/web/20160229224310/http://www.bfi.org.uk/films-tv-people/4ce2ba75b73db . dead . 29 February 2016 . 2023-01-12 . BFI . en.
  17. Web site: Where Is the friend's home?. 27 February 2007. Rebecca Flint. World records.
  18. Web site: Where Is the Friend's Home?. 27 February 2007. Chris Darke. Zeitgeistfilms. https://web.archive.org/web/20070127080038/http://www.zeitgeistfilms.com/films/whereisthefriendshome/presskit.pdf . 27 January 2007.
  19. Web site: Abbas Kiarostami Season: National Film Theatre, 1st-31 May 2005. 23 February 2007. 2005. David Parkinson. BBC.
  20. Web site: Taste of Cherry. 23 February 2007. Godfrey Cheshire. The Criterion Collection.
  21. Close Up. 2002. Ed Gonzalez. Slant Magazine. https://web.archive.org/web/20070612130914/http://www.slantmagazine.com/film/film_review.asp?ID=101. 12 June 2007. dead.
  22. Web site: Close-Up: Holding a Mirror up to the Movies. 2000. Jeffrey M. Anderson. Combustible Celluloid. 22 February 2007. https://web.archive.org/web/20190624184514/http://www.combustiblecelluloid.com/closeup.shtml. 24 June 2019. dead.
  23. Web site: Close-Up. 1998. Bfi Video Publishing.
  24. News: Celebrating film-making. https://web.archive.org/web/20181120105744/https://www.thehindu.com/thehindu/fr/2005/05/13/stories/2005051303400400.htm. dead. 20 November 2018. 2005. The Hindu. Hemangini Gupta.
  25. Web site: Life and Nothing More… (Abbas Kiarostami) 1991. 2002. Jeremy Heilman. MovieMartyr. 31 January 2007. https://web.archive.org/web/20120206062939/http://www.moviemartyr.com/1991/lifeandnothingmore.htm. 6 February 2012. dead.
  26. News: Fill in the Blanks. 1997. Jonathan Rosenbaum. Chicago Reader.
  27. Web site: And Life Goes On (synopsis). Film Info. Zeitgeistfilms. https://web.archive.org/web/20070216075824/http://www.zeitgeistfilms.com/film.php?directoryname=andlifegoeson. 16 February 2007. dead.
  28. Web site: Days in the Country: Representations of Rural Space .... 2003. Stephen Bransford. Sense of Cinema.
  29. Web site: Kiarostami: The Art of Living. Maximilian Le Cain. Film Ireland. https://web.archive.org/web/20091210151223/http://www.filmireland.net/reviews/kiarostami.htm. 10 December 2009. dead.
  30. Web site: Where is the director?. 2005. British Film Institute. https://web.archive.org/web/20060202040216/http://www.bfi.org.uk/sightandsound/issue/200505/. 2 February 2006. dead.
  31. Web site: Festival de Cannes: Taste of Cherry . 23 September 2009 . festival-cannes.com. https://web.archive.org/web/20110822142852/http://www.festival-cannes.com/en/archives/ficheFilm/id/4835/year/1997.html. 22 August 2011. dead.
  32. Web site: Concepts of Suicide in Kiarostami's Taste of Cherry. 2000. Constantine Santas. Sense of Cinema.
  33. News: Abbas Kiarostami, interview. Geoff Andrew. The Guardian. London. 25 May 2005. 12 April 2010. https://web.archive.org/web/20100314222353/http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2005/apr/28/hayfilmfestival2005.guardianhayfestival. 14 March 2010 . live.
  34. Web site: Not Quite a Memoire. 23 February 2007. Judy Stone . Firouzan Films.
  35. Web site: 43rd Annual San Francisco International Film Festival. 2000. Jeff Lambert. Sense of Cinema.
  36. Geoff Andrew, Ten (London: BFI Publishing, 2005), p. 35.
  37. Geoff Andrew, Ten, (London: BFI Publishing, 2005) p. 32.
  38. Web site: Ten (film) synopsis . 23 February 2007 . Ten info . Zeitgeistfilms . https://web.archive.org/web/20070216075419/http://www.zeitgeistfilms.com/film.php?directoryname=ten . 16 February 2007 . dead .
  39. Geoff Andrew, Ten, (London: BFI Publishing, 2005) pp 73–4.
  40. Book: Ginsberg. Terri. Lippard. Chris. Historical Dictionary of Middle Eastern Cinema. 2010. Scarecrow Press. 978-0-8108-6090-2. 236. 3 March 2012. https://web.archive.org/web/20130720113849/https://rowman.com/ISBN/9780810860902. 20 July 2013. dead.
  41. News: Film Review: Shirin. The Guardian. 29 August 2008. 17 February 2012. Andrew. Pulver.
  42. News: Iranian film 'Shirin' a rewarding challenge. . . 17 July 2012. 29 August 2008.
  43. News: Higgins. Charlotte. No Così relationship: visa row scuppers ENO's bid to secure Abbas Kiarostami. The Guardian. 6 July 2016. 5 May 2009.
  44. News: Certified Copy Review. The Guardian. 2 September 2010. 17 February 2012. Peter. Bradshaw.
  45. Book: Ebert, Roger. Roger Ebert's Movie Yearbook 2012. 6 December 2011. Andrews McMeel Publishing. 978-1-4494-2150-2. 93.
  46. Web site: 24 Frames (2018) . . . 23 August 2018.
  47. Web site: Abbas Kiarostami. 23 February 2007. 2004. IndiePix. https://web.archive.org/web/20071022093642/http://www2.indiepix.net/creator/creator.pl?id=1503. 22 October 2007. dead.
  48. Web site: Abbas Kiarostami. 23 February 2007. Cannes Film Festival. https://web.archive.org/web/20131205111611/http://www.festival-cannes.com/en/archives/artist/id/1114.html. 5 December 2013. dead.
  49. Kiarostami to head Capalbio jury. 16 June 2007. Nick Vivarelli. Variety.com. 11 June 2007.
  50. Web site: A Talk with the Artist: Abbas Kiarostami in Conversation. 23 February 2007. 2004. Shahin Parhami. Synoptique.
  51. Web site: With liberty for all: the films of Kiarostami. 27 February 2007. 2003. Ben Sachs. The Mac Weekly. https://web.archive.org/web/20060922072655/http://www.macalester.edu/weekly/120503/arts01.html . 22 September 2006.
  52. Ganz, A. & Khatib, L. (2006) "Digital Cinema: The transformation of film practice and aesthetics," in New Cinemas, vol. 4 no 1, pp 21–36
  53. Web site: Cooling Down a 'Hot Medium'. 23 February 2007. 2005. Jamsheed Akrami. Iran Heritage Foundation. https://web.archive.org/web/20070927221105/http://www.iranheritage.com/kiarostamiconference/abstracts_full.htm. 27 September 2007. dead.
  54. Web site: The White Balloon and Iranian Cinema. 23 February 2007. 2001. Adrian Martin. Sense of Cinema. https://web.archive.org/web/20070127060947/http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/01/15/panahi_balloon.html . 27 January 2007.
  55. News: Kiarostami's Genius Style. 23 February 2007. 1999. Charles Mudede. The Stranger.
  56. Jean-Luc Nancy, "On Evidence: Life and Nothing More, by Abbas Kiarostami," Discourse 21.1 (1999), p.82. Also, cf., Jean Luc Nancy. Is Cinema Renewing Itself? Film-Philosophy. vol. 6 no. 15, July 2002.
  57. Jean-Luc Nancy, "On Evidence: Life and Nothing More, by Abbas Kiarostami," Discourse 21.1 (1999), p.85–6.
  58. Jean-Luc Nancy, The Evidence of Film – Abbas Kiarostami, Yves Gevaert, Belgium 2001,
  59. Web site: Strategic lies . 23 February 2007 . 2001 . Injy El-Kashef and Mohamed El-Assyouti . Al-Ahram Weekly . https://web.archive.org/web/20070217222234/http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2001/556/cu1.htm . 17 February 2007 . dead .
  60. News: Abbas Kiarostami. 28 April 2005. The Guardian. 4 August 2019. 0261-3077.
  61. Kiarostami and the Aesthetics of Modern Persian Poetry. Iranian Studies. 39. 4. 509–537. 2006. Khatereh Sheibani. 10.1080/00210860601005088. 170722699.
  62. Karimi-Hakkak, Ahmad. "From Kinetic Poetics to a Poetic Cinema: Abbas Kiarostami and the Esthetics of Persian Poetry." University of Maryland (2005)
  63. Web site: Adaption, Fidelity, and Transformation: Kiarostami and the Modernist Poetry of Iran. 23 February 2007. 2005. Sima Daad. Iran Heritage Foundation. https://web.archive.org/web/20070927221105/http://www.iranheritage.com/kiarostamiconference/abstracts_full.htm. 27 September 2007. dead.
  64. Book review by Hamish Ford . The Cinema of Abbas Kiarostami by Alberto Elena . Senses of Cinema . 38 . February 2006 . 23 February 2007.
  65. Web site: Nacim Pak . Religion and Spirituality in Kiarostami's Works . Iran Heritage Foundation . 2005 . 23 February 2007 . https://web.archive.org/web/20070927221105/http://www.iranheritage.com/kiarostamiconference/abstracts_full.htm#j . 27 September 2007 . dead.
  66. Web site: Simplicity and Bliss: Poems of Abbas Kiarostami. 23 February 2007. 2005. Narguess Farzad. Iran Heritage Foundation. https://web.archive.org/web/20070927221105/http://www.iranheritage.com/kiarostamiconference/abstracts_full.htm. 27 September 2007. dead.
  67. http://www.jornaldeleiria.pt/index.php?article=1026&visual=1 Kiarostami mostra fotos de neve (Kiarostami shows snow photographs)
  68. Web site: Uncertain Reality: A Topos in Kiarostami's Poems and Films. 23 February 2007. 2005. Riccardo Zipoli. Iran Heritage Foundation. https://web.archive.org/web/20070927221105/http://www.iranheritage.com/kiarostamiconference/abstracts_full.htm#n. 27 September 2007. dead.
  69. News: Landscapes of the mind. 28 February 2007. The Guardian. London. Stuart. Jeffries. 29 November 2005.
  70. Web site: Besides censorship. 27 February 2007. 2006. Ari Siletz. Iranian.com.
  71. http://www.payvand.com/news/16/mar/1122.html Leading Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami battles coma, cancer.
  72. http://new.tehrantimes.com/news/300250/Medical-team-director-denies-report-on-Abbas-Kiarostami-s-cancer "Medical team director denies report on Abbas Kiarostami's cancer.
  73. http://www.tehrantimes.com/news/403805/Abbas-Kiarostami-leaves-Iran-to-receive-treatment-at-Paris-hospital Abbas Kiarostami leaves Iran to receive treatment at Paris hospital
  74. News: Abbas Kiarostami, Palme d'Or-winning Iranian film-maker, dies aged 76 . Andrew . Pulver . Saeed Kamali . Dehghan . 4 July 2016 . The Guardian .
  75. Web site: Tributes flow for Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami, giant of world cinema . South China Morning Post . 6 July 2016 .
  76. Web site: سفیر ایران در فرانسه: پیگیر ترخیص و انتقال پیکر کیارستمی به ایران هستیم.
  77. Web site: پیکر کیارستمی در لواسان به خاک سپرده می‌شود . آخرین اخبار ایران و جهان . خبرگزاری باشگاه خبرنگاران – آخرین اخبار ایران و جهان – YJC.
  78. Web site: Abbas Kiarostami's body arrives in Tehran among mourning crowds of artists . payvand.com.
  79. http://www7.irna.ir/en/News/82142832/ Iran urges France to send home Kiarostami's medical dossier
  80. News: Abbas Kiarostami: Martin Scorsese pays tribute to 'one of our great artists'. https://web.archive.org/web/20160705173609/http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/news/abbas-kiarostami-died-martin-scorsese-pays-tribute-to-one-of-our-great-artists-a7121156.html . 2016-07-05 . limited . live. 5 July 2016.
  81. http://www7.irna.ir/en/News/82142041/ UNESCO opens memorial book for signature to honour Kiarostami
  82. Web site: Artists, officials mourn loss of auteur Abbas Kiarostam. 8 July 2016.
  83. News: Abbas Kiarostami, Acclaimed Iranian Filmmaker, Dies at 76. The New York Times. 4 July 2016. Grimes. William.
  84. Web site: Abbas Kiarostami: a highly sophisticated, self-possessed master of cinematic poetry – Peter Bradshaw. Peter. Bradshaw. 4 July 2016. The Guardian.
  85. Web site: Iran bids farewell to film director Abbas Kiarostami, darling of world cinema. 11 July 2016.
  86. http://www.plenglish.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=5052151&Itemid=1 Iranians Pay Tribute to Late Filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami
  87. Web site: Mourning crowds bid farewell to Abbas Kiarostami. 10 July 2016.
  88. Web site: Iran: thousands mourn film director Abbas Kiarostami. 10 July 2016.
  89. News: آیا عباس کیارستمی فیلم "ده" را نساخت؟!. Tabnak. fa. 31 August 2020. 21 June 2022.
  90. News: Rashidan. Masoumeh. 10 September 2020. واکنش کامران عدل به ادعاها علیه کیارستمی: مهمل است. Ensaf News. fa. 21 June 2022.
  91. News: Martin. Rebecca. 28 February 2021. Amina Maher's "Letter to My Mother" is a courageous and unflinching self-portrait. Cinema Femme. 21 June 2022.
  92. Web site: Letter to my mother. Cinematic Perception. 21 June 2022.
  93. News: Venardou. Evanna. 20 June 2022. https://www.lifo.gr/culture/cinema/i-skinothetria-mania-akmpari-katigorei-ton-ampas-kiarostami-gia-biasmo-kai-logoklopi. el:Η σκηνοθέτρια Μάνια Ακμπάρι κατηγορεί τον Αμπάς Κιαροστάμι για βιασμό και λογοκλοπή. LiFO. el. 21 June 2022.
  94. News: Edemen. Fatma. 25 July 2022. Mania Akbari Tells Her Own Story. Altyazı Fasikül. 25 July 2022.
  95. Web site: Close Up: Iranian Cinema Past Present and Future, by Hamid Dabashi. . 23 February 2007. 2002 . Dorna Khazeni . Brightlightsfilms . http://arquivo.pt/wayback/20090713080817/http%3A//www%2Ebrightlightsfilm%2Ecom/35/iraniancinema%2Ehtml . 13 July 2009. dead.
  96. News: Carried by the wind: Films by Abbas Kiarostami . 23 February 2007 . 2002 . Jason Anderson . Eye Weekly . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20141027232626/http://contests.eyeweekly.com/eye/issue/issue_05.02.02/film/kiarostami.php . 27 October 2014 .
  97. Web site: Abbas Kiarostami: Biography . 23 February 2007 . Zeitgeist, the spirit of the time . https://web.archive.org/web/20070218133020/http://www.zeitgeistfilms.com/director.php?director_id=33 . 18 February 2007 . dead .
  98. News: Abbas Kiarostami – Not A Martyr. 23 February 2007. 2005. Stuart Jeffries. The Guardian. https://web.archive.org/web/20070208010029/http://www.countercurrents.org/arts-jeffries250405.htm. 8 February 2007 . live.
  99. News: Minister of Fear . The New York Times . John . Wray . 23 September 2007 . 24 October 2008.
  100. News: The world's 40 best directors . 23 February 2007 . 2006 . Panel of critics . The Guardian . London . https://web.archive.org/web/20070227201617/http://film.guardian.co.uk/features/page/0%2C11456%2C1082823%2C00.html . 27 February 2007 . live .
  101. [Daniel Ross (philosopher)|Daniel Ross]
  102. News: Iran's leading filmmaker denied U.S. visa . 23 February 2007 . 2002 . Andrew O'Hehir . Salon . https://web.archive.org/web/20070217125318/http://dir.salon.com/story/ent/movies/2002/09/27/kiarostami/index.html . 17 February 2007 . dead .
  103. News: Iranian director hands back award. 23 February 2007. BBC. 17 October 2002.
  104. Web site: Abbas Kiarostami Controversy at the 40th NYFF. 23 February 2007. 2002. Celestine Bohlen. Human Rights Watch. https://web.archive.org/web/20070214045209/http://www.hrw.org/iff/2002/kiarostami.html. 14 February 2007 . live.
  105. News: No entry for Kiarostami. 23 February 2007. 2002. Jacques Mandelbaum. Le Monde.
  106. Web site: Abbas Kiarostami workshop 2–10 May 2005. 23 February 2007. 2005. Pars times.
  107. Web site: Abbas Kiarostami: Image Maker. 28 February 2007. 2007. Museum of Modern Art. https://web.archive.org/web/20070503103415/http://www.moma.org/exhibitions/exhibitions.php?id=3955 . 3 May 2007.
  108. News: Martin Scorsese goes global. 29 May 2007. US today. 22 May 2007. https://web.archive.org/web/20110523102322/http://www.usatoday.com/life/movies/news/2007-05-22-scorsese_N.htm. 23 May 2011. dead.
  109. Web site: Abbas Kiarostami. 27 February 2007. 2002. Mehrnaz Saeed-Vafa. Sense of Cinema. https://web.archive.org/web/20070217223813/http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/directors/02/kiarostami.html . 17 February 2007.