Abbas Kiarostami

Abbas Kiarostami (Persian: عباس کیارستمی, English: Abbas Kiarostami, June 22, 1940 - July 4, 2016), born in Tehran, is one of the most influential and controversial film directors, screenwriters and producers in Iran after the revolution. He is also one of the most famous Iranian directors internationally in the past 20 years. During the 1980s and 1990s, when the international community held a negative view of Iran, his films showed a compassionate and artistic side of Iran. Although Abbas Kiarostami made several award-winning films in the 1970s, his fame on the world cinema stage came after the Iranian Revolution. His masterpiece "Nema-ye Nazdik (1990)" became famous in France, and the international film community began to pay attention to Abbas Kiarostami's work. 1991's "Zendegi va digar hich" (Zendegi va digar hich) won him the following year's Un Certain Regard at the Cannes Film Festival. Regard won his first major Rossellini Award, 20 years after his first breakthrough film Gozaresh (1977), he finally won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival for Ta'm e Guilass (1997).