Roshan Cultural Heritage Institute mourns the passing of acclaimed Iranian film director, photographer, artist and poet, Abbas Kiarostami on July 4, 2016, in Paris at the age of 76. Kiarostami was one of the most influential Iranian artists, who gave the Iranian cinema the international credibility that it has today.
Kiarostami was born in 1940 in northern Iran. After a degree in fine art at Tehran University, he worked as a graphic designer and for a film ad agency before joining the Centre for Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults (Kanun) in 1969. It was during his two decades at Kanun that Kiarostami worked on what is known as the Koker trilogy, the three films that established his international reputation as a director of considerable sensitivity and intellectual rigor: Where Is the Friend’s Home? (1987) won the Bronze Leopard at the Locarno film festival, Life, and Nothing More (1992) and Through the Olive Trees (1994). Kiarostami’s upward ascension as a major film director was confirmed in 1997, when his seventh feature, Taste of Cherry –a study of a man driving around looking for someone to help him commit suicide– was awarded the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival.
