Abbas Kiarostami, Iranian film director and screenwriter, Died at 76

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Abbas Kiarostami was born on June 22, 1940, and died on July 4, 2016.

He was an Iranian film director, screenwriter, photographer and film producer.

He has been a active film-maker from 1970, Abbas Kiarostami had been involved in over forty films, including shorts and documentaries.

He attained critical acclaim for directing the Koker trilogy (1987–94), Close-Up (1990), Taste of Cherry (1997) – which was awarded the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival that year – and The Wind Will Carry Us (1999).

Later, Certified Copy (2010) and Like Someone in Love (2012), he filmed for the first time outside Iran: in Italy and Japan, respectively.

He had worked largly 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.

Abbas Kiarostami was part of a generation of filmmakers in the Iranian New Wave, a Persian cinema movement that started in the late 1960s and includes pioneering directors such as Masoud Kimiai, Sohrab Shahid Saless, Dariush Mehrjui, Bahram Beyzai, Nasser Taghvai and Parviz Kimiavi.

Together they filmmakers share many common techniques including the use of poetic dialogue and allegorical storytelling dealing with political and philosophical issues.

He had a way 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 was also known for his use of contemporary Iranian poetry in the dialogue, titles, and themes of his films.

Reports were that he was suffering from gastrointestinal cancer.

And in late June, he left Iran for treatment in a Paris hospital, where he died.

Abbas Kiarostami passed away at 76 years old.