Abbas Kiarostami Filmography

Shirin

Crew: Director

Actors: Juliette Binoche, Mahnaz Afshar, Niki Karimi

Synopsis: Celebrated Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami directed this experimental feature in which, in the truest sense, the audience is the star. Shirin was shot during a performance of a play based on Farrideh Golbou's narrative poem Khosrow e Shirin, a love story in which an artist and an emperor both Read More

To Each His Own Cinema

Crew: Director

Synopsis: At the time of its production, To Each His Own Cinema represented the latest arrival in a tidal wave of internationally oriented omnibus films, with no official relation between them but all produced within a few years of one another. Few could claim a roster of talent comparable to this one Read More

10 on Ten

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Synopsis: In 1997, when Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami was forced to do some last minute re-shoots for his picture The Taste of Cherry, he used digital video equipment for the first time and was immediately taken by the ease and flexibility of working with the format. Becoming an outspoken advocate of Read More

Tickets

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Carlo delle Piane, Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi, Silvana De Santis, Filippo Trojano, Carolina Benvenga

Roads of Kiarostami

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

The Deserted Station

Crew: Screen Story

Actors: Leila Hatami, Nezam Manouchehri, Mehran Rajabi, Mahmoud Pakneyat

Synopsis: A man and his wife encounter some unanticipated delays en route to a religious shrine in Iranian director Alireza Raisian's 2002 drama The Deserted Station. As he drives his car to the holy city of Mashad, a young photographer applies his trade and snaps photos of various sites and locations. Read More

Crimson Gold

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Hossain Emadeddin, Kamyar Sheisi, Azita Rayeji, Shahram Vaziri, Pourang Nakhael

Synopsis: Jafar Panahi's Crimson Gold was written by Abbas Kiarostami, who also wrote Panahi's The White Balloon. The film opens in the midst of a jewelry store robbery. In a single shot, a hulk of a man, trapped by the store's security system, shoots the store manager. Moments later, with an excited crowd Read More

Five

Crew: Cinematographer, Director, Screenwriter

Synopsis: Acclaimed Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami pays homage to Yasujiro Ozu, the brilliant Japanese filmmaker whose spare but evocative style has been a major influence on Kiarostami's work, with this non-narrative visual experiment. Five features five extended single-shot sequences shot along a Read More

Epreuves d'Artistes

Actors: Pedro Almodóvar, Robert Altman, Michelangelo Antonioni, Roberto Benigni, Bernardo Bertolucci

Ten

Crew: Cinematographer, Director, Editor, Producer, Screenwriter

Actors: Mania Akbari, Amin Maher, Roya Arabshahi, Katayoun Taleidzadeh, Mandana Sharbaf

Synopsis: Award-winning Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami uses the casual setting of one woman's automobile as the setting for a subtle but potent look at gender issues in the Middle East. Mania Akbari plays a nameless woman who, over the course of several days, gives a number of friends, family members Read More

Abbas Kiarostami: The Art of Living

Actors: Abbas Kiarostami, Alain Bergala, Godfrey Cheshire, Michel Ciment, Adrian Martin

ABC Africa

Crew: Director, Editor

Actors: Abbas Kiarostami

Synopsis: Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami has often concerned himself with children striving to make the best of difficult circumstances, and this documentary finds him capturing a real-life corollary to the fictional tales of his best-known work. At the request of the United Nations International Fund Read More

The Wind Will Carry Us

Crew: Director, Editor, Producer, Screenwriter

Actors: Behzad Dourani

Synopsis: This idiosyncratic drama from Iran begins as a jeep winds through the hills of Kurdistan, containing an engineer (Behzad Dourani) and his two assistants (whom we never see) as they search for a small village in the mountains. When they arrive, they are greeted by a young boy, who shows them a Read More

Bid-o Bad

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Hadi Alipour, Amir Janfada

Synopsis: Owing a rather sizable debt to Abbas Kiarostami, who provided its screenplay, Willow and Wind follows the travails of Kuchakpour, an Iranian boy who must replace a school window he broke while playing soccer. If he doesn't find the money to pay for the window by the end of the day, he will be Read More

Friendly Persuasion: Iranian Cinema After The Revolution

Actors: Abbas Kiarostami, Mohsen Makhmalbaf, Dariush Mehrjui

Synopsis: In the wake of the fundamentalist revolution that overtook Iran in 1979, the last thing most people would have expected was for the nation to spawn one of the world's most interesting national cinemas. But such Iranian films as The Taste of Cherry, The Children of Heaven, and The White Balloon Read More

Ahmad Shamlou: Master Poet of Liberty

Actors: Ahmad Shamlou, Ayda Shamlou, Simin Behbahani, Bahram Beyza'l, Iran Darroudi

Synopsis: The Persian poet, writer, and journalist known for his complex prose and simple yet vivid imagery serves as the subject of this documentary from director Moslem Mansouri. Ahmad Shamlou is often cited as the originator of Persian blank poetry. Nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1984 Read More

The Taste of Cherry

Crew: Director, Editor, Producer, Screenwriter

Actors: Homayoun Ershadi

Synopsis: Co-winner of the Palme d'Or at the 1997 Cannes Film Festival, The Taste of Cherry is the venerable Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami's examination of life, death and the small miracles in between. Homayoun Ershadi stars as Mr. Badii, a middle-aged man wishing to kill himself; driving his Range Read More

À Propos De Nice, La Suite

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Synopsis: This French anthology is a tribute to A Propos de Nice (1930), a classic documentary that took a poetic and sometimes satirical look at life in the French Riviera town. This version blends fact and fiction to chronicle life in modern-day Nice and is comprised of seven vignettes, each directed by Read More

The White Balloon

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Aida Mohammadkhani, Mohsen Kalifi, Fereshtch Sadr Orfani, Anna Bourkowska

Synopsis: Iranian filmmaker Jafar Pinahi's debut feature The White Balloon tells the story of Razieh (Aida Mohammadkhani), a seven-year-old girl intent on buying a new goldfish in time for Tehran's annual New Year's Day festivities (in Iranian culture, the goldfish is a symbol of life). Upon badgering her Read More

Through the Olive Trees

Crew: Director, Editor, Producer, Screenwriter

Actors: Hossein Rezai, Tahereh Ladanian, Mohammad Ali Keshavarz, Zarifeh Shiva, Farhad Kheradmand

Synopsis: This Iranian movie about making movies wavers between a documentary and a fictional drama. It is the third in director Abbas Kiarostami's cycle of films that include Where Is My Friend's Home? and And Life Goes On. Like the others, this film is also set in northern Iran. An actor playing the Read More

The Journey

Crew: Screenwriter

Synopsis: This provocative Iranian drama explores the notions of personal responsibility and the psychological effects of war. The story begins in the very recent past during an air raid on Teheran. A middle-class family is desperately trying to flee the beleaguered city and the father ends up running Read More

Life and Nothing More

Crew: Director, Editor, Screenwriter

Synopsis: The thin distinction between fiction and reality comes in for some blurring in this fact-based near-documentary. Learning of a major earthquake, the director of a children's movie, Where Is My Friend's Home?, is worried about two of his performers in that film. He sets out with his son to Read More

Close-Up

Crew: Director

Actors: Hossein Sabzian

Synopsis: This Iranian film qualifies as a docudrama, and makes some telling comments on society as it tells its tale. In the story, Ali Sabzian, in a fit of whimsey, claims to a fellow passenger on the bus that he is the famous Iranian film director Mohsen Makhmalbaf. So far, so good, but he then becomes Read More

Homework

Crew: Director, Editor, Screenwriter

Synopsis: In this documentary, Iranian schoolboys complain about the amount of homework they have to do. This would not seem to be a particularly harsh criticism of the Iranian school system, but evidently the nation's educational authorities thought otherwise, and held up the film's release. Also Read More

Where is the Friend's Home?

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Ahmed Ahmed Poor, Babek Ahmed Poor, Kheda Barech Defai

Synopsis: The film that established director Abbas Kiarostami's reputation outside his native Iran, Where Is the Friend's Home? tells a simple story in such a spare fashion, many critics found its impact to be almost subliminal. As the film opens Ahmed (Ahmed Ahmed Poor), a grade schooler, watches as his Read More

Hamshahri

Crew: Director, Editor, Screenwriter

Hamsarayan

Crew: Director, Editor, Screenwriter

Behdasht-E Dandan

Crew: Director, Editor, Screenwriter

Gozaresh

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Rangha

Crew: Director, Editor, Screenwriter

The Wedding Suit

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

The Traveller

Crew: Director

Mossafer

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Zang-E Tafrih

Crew: Director, Screenwriter