Abbas Kiarostami (Persian: عباس کیارستمی [ʔæbˌbɒːs kijɒːɾostæˈmi] ; June 22, 1940 – July 4, 2016) was an Iranian film director, screenwriter, poet, photographer, and film producer. 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. Close-Up was also ranked one of the 50 greatest movies of all time in the famous decennial Sight & Sound poll conducted in 2012. 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. Kiarostami had a reputation for using child protagonists, for documentary-style narrative films, 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. Description above from the Wikipedia article Abbas Kiarostami, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

Filmography

• 2026OTIS — Thanks
• 2026Volte Sempre, Abbas! — Self (archive footage) (uncredited), Screenplay
• 2025Bukhara Chronicles — voice
• 2020The Mirror of Possible Worlds: Kiarostami on Aran
• 2019How to Make Use of Leisure Time: Painting — Screenplay, Director, Editor
• 201824 Frames — Director
• 2017Final Exam — Screenplay
• 2017You are not alone
• 20163 Portraits — Associate Producer
• 2016Cabeza de gallo — Supervising Producer
• 2016Passenger — Director, Writer, Screenplay
• 2016Take Me Home — Director, Cinematography
• 2014The Poetry of Cinema: Abbas Kiarostami in Conversation with Richard Peña
• 2013The Girl in the Lemon Factory — Co-Writer, Editor
• 2013Venice 70: Future Reloaded — Director
• 2012Like Someone in Love — Director, Screenplay
• 2012Making of 'Like Someone in Love' — Narrator
• 2012Meeting Leila — Writer
• 2010Certified Copy — Director, Screenplay
• 2010No — Director
• 2009Shirin — Director, Editor, Producer
• 2008Seagull Eggs — Director
• 2007Almost Brooklyn — Supervising Producer
• 2007Persian Carpet — Director, Screenplay
• 2007Pierre Rissient: Man of Cinema — Cinematography
• 2007To Each His Own Cinema — Director
• 2007Víctor Erice – Abbas Kiarostami: Correspondences — himself, Director, Writer, Editor, Director of Photography
• 2006Is There a Place to Approach? — Screenplay, Director
• 2006Men at Work — Screenplay
• 2006Roads of Kiarostami — Self, Director, Editor, Director of Photography, Writer
• 2005Around Five — himself, Director
• 2005Tickets — Director, Screenplay
• 2005TropiAbbas — Abbas Kiarostami
• 200410 on Ten — Self, Director, Producer, Writer, Sound Director, Cinematography, Editor
• 2004Friday's Soldiers — Title Designer
• 2004Journey to the Land of the Traveler
• 2003Crimson Gold — Screenplay
• 2003Five Dedicated to Ozu — Director, Director of Photography, Screenplay, Sound, Editor
• Parola (su una data)
• 2003Willow and Wind — Screenplay
• 2002Abbas Kiarostami: Leçon de cinéma — (himself)
• 2002Deserted Station — Writer
• 2002Farda — Creative Consultant
• 2002Ten — Editor, Director, Director of Photography
• 2001ABC Africa — Self, Director, Writer, Producer, Editor
• 2001Abbas Kiarostami commente son film
• 2000Kiarostami in Close up — as Self
• 2000The Key — Editor, Screenplay
• 1999The Wind Will Carry Us — Director, Editor, Producer, Writer
• 1997Taste of Cherry — Self (uncredited), Director, Producer, Writer, Editor
• 1997The Birth of Light — Director
• 1996Safar — Writer
• 1995Concerning Nice — Writer, Director
• 1995Lumière & Company — Director
• 1995The White Balloon — Writer
• 1994Through the Olive Trees — Self (uncredited), Writer, Director, Editor, Production Design, Producer
• 1992Life, and Nothing More… — Director, Writer, Editor
• 1990Close-Up — Self, Writer, Director, Editor
• 1989Homework — Self (uncredited), Director, Editor, Writer
• 1987Where Is The Friend's House? — Director, Editor, Screenplay
• 1984First Graders — Director, Writer, Editor
• 1983Fellow Citizen — Editor, Writer, Director
• 1982The Chorus — Director, Writer, Editor
• 1981Orderly or Disorderly? — Director, Editor, Writer
• 1980Toothache — Director, Screenplay, Editor
• 1979First Case, Second Case — Editor, Writer, Director
• 1978Solution No. 1 — Writer, Director, Editor
• 1977Jahan-Nama Palace — Director
• 1977The Report — Director, Screenplay
• 1977Tribute to the Teachers — Writer, Producer, Editor, Director
• 1976A Wedding Suit — Director, Editor, Screenplay, Producer
• 1976Colors — Director, Editor, Writer, Producer
• 1975So Can I — Producer, Director, Screenplay, Editor
• 1975Two Solutions to One Problem — Director, Writer, Editor
• 1974The Traveler — Writer, Director, Producer
• 1973Experience — Director, Editor, Screenplay, Producer
• 1972Breaktime — Director, Writer
• 1970The Bread and Alley — Director, Producer
• 1969Qeysar — Title Designer
• Taste Of Shirin : Making of Abbas Kiarostami's 'Shirin' — Abbas Kiarostami
• The Scent of the Pitanga — Original Story

Appearances as themselves (25)

• 2026On the Road with Abbas Kiarostami — Self
• 2021Leech — himself (voice)
• 2019Print — Self
• 201676 Minutes and 15 seconds with Abbas Kiarostami — Himself
• 2014Vida — Himself
• 2013Abbas Kiarostami: A Report — Self
• 2013What Is Cinema? — Self
• 2011Guest — Self
• 2011Kurosawa's Way — Self
• 2010In Praise of the Seventy Years Old — Self
• 2010Let's See Copia Conforme — Self
• 2008Taste of Shirin — Himself
• 200510 Days with Kiarostami — Self
• 2005A Good Time for Tragedy — Himself
• 2005On the Road with Kiarostami — Himself
• 2003A Walk with Kiarostami — Self
• 2003Abbas Kiarostami: The Art of Living — Self
• 2003Chaplin Today: The Kid — Self
• 1999A Week With Kiarostami — himself
• 1999Ahmad Shamlou: Master Poet of Liberty — self
• 1997Project — Self
• 1997Sohanak — Self
• 1996Close-Up Long Shot — Self (archive footage)
• 1994Abbas Kiarostami: Truths and Dreams — Self
• 1994Behind the Scenes of 'Under the Olive Trees' — Self