Abbas Kiarostami

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Lore & Background

Kiarostami was born in Tehran to a Persian family. His first artistic experience was painting, and he won a painting competition at age 18 before studying at the University of Tehran School of Fine Arts, majoring in painting and graphic design. He supported his studies by working as a traffic policeman. In the 1960s, he worked in advertising, designing posters and creating commercials, and between 1962 and 1966 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. In 1970, Kiarostami helped set up a filmmaking department at the Institute for the Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults (Kanoon) in Tehran. His first film was the twelve-minute short The Bread and Alley (1970). He pursued an individualistic style, and his 1974 film The Traveler furthered his reputation for realism, diegetic simplicity, and stylistic complexity. He gained recognition outside Iran with Where Is the Friend's House? (1987), the first of the Koker trilogy, which also includes And Life Goes On (1992) and Through the Olive Trees (1994). The films relate to the 1990 Manjil–Rudbar earthquake, in which 40,000 people died. 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. In the 1990s, Kiarostami directed Close-Up (1990), a part-documentary, part-staged film about the real-life trial of a man who impersonated filmmaker Mohsen Makhmalbaf. Taste of Cherry (1997) was awarded the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival that year. Later works Certified Copy (2010) and Like Someone in Love (2012) were filmed outside Iran, in Italy and Japan respectively.

Reader's Guide

Abbas Kiarostami's significance lies in his distinctive filmmaking style, which often used child protagonists, documentary-style narrative films set in rural villages, and conversations unfolding inside cars using stationary mounted cameras. His 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 his works. He also used Persian poetry in the dialogue, titles, and themes of his films. Kiarostami's films Where Is the Friend's House?, 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 2012 Sight & Sound poll. He worked extensively as a screenwriter, film editor, art director, and producer, and was also a poet, photographer, painter, illustrator, and graphic designer. His legacy is that of a key figure in the Iranian New Wave, whose work gained international acclaim and influenced filmmakers worldwide.

Did You Know?

• Kiarostami supported his studies at the University of Tehran School of Fine Arts by working as a traffic policeman.
• Between 1962 and 1966, he shot around 150 advertisements for Iranian television.
• His first film, The Bread and Alley (1970), was a twelve-minute neorealistic short about a schoolboy's confrontation with an aggressive dog.
• Taste of Cherry (1997) was awarded the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival.
• Kiarostami did not consider Where Is the Friend's House?, And Life Goes On, and Through the Olive Trees to be a trilogy; he suggested the last two plus Taste of Cherry form a trilogy about the preciousness of life.

Roots in a Family of Artists

Juliette Binoche was born in Paris on March 9, 1964, into a household where art was the family language. The creative lineage ran deeper still: both maternal grandparents were actors from that same Polish city, and both were later imprisoned at Auschwitz by the Nazis for being intellectuals. Despite this rich heritage, Binoche's childhood carried a shadow. After her parents divorced in 1968, she and her sister Marion were sent to a provincial boarding school. As teenagers, the sisters spent holidays with their grandmother, going months without seeing either parent. Binoche has spoken of this perceived abandonment as profoundly shaping her. Not a strong student, she discovered her voice in school theater and, at seventeen, directed and starred in a student production of Ionesco's Exit the King. A brief stint at the CNSAD conservatory ended when she rejected its rigid curriculum.

The 1985 Breakthrough

Binoche's path to the screen was neither smooth nor immediate. Her first professional appearance was as an extra in the 1983 TF1 television series Dorothée, danseuse de corde, followed by a small role in a provincial TV film. Godard had requested to meet her after seeing a photograph taken by her boyfriend. She spent six months on the Geneva set, yet her presence in the final cut was reduced to a handful of scenes. The real turning point arrived in 1985. The film premiered at Cannes, won Best Director, and Binoche became the festival's darling.

Awards and International Recognition

Across more than sixty films in both French and English, Binoche has accumulated an extraordinary collection of honors, including an Academy Award, a BAFTA, and a César. Her most celebrated performances crystallized in the 1990s and 2000s. In 2010, she won the Cannes Best Actress award for her portrayal of an antiques dealer in Abbas Kiarostami's Certified Copy.

Beyond the Silver Screen

While cinema remains Binoche's primary medium, her artistic life extends well beyond the screen. Her family's deep roots in performance—parents who were directors and actors, grandparents who were stage performers—meant that the stage and screen were never separate worlds for her.