Biography

Dark sunglasses

Scenes that take place in or around a car

Direct quotes from Persian poetry

Mixing fantasy and reality to employ a metaphoric form

Shoots his films mostly with non-actors and without any script

Jean-Luc Godard has said, "Film begins with D.W. Griffith and ends with Abbas Kiarostami." According to Martin Scorsese, "Kiarostami represents the highest level of artistry in the cinema." When these words are quoted in front of Kiarostami, he winces most charmingly. "This admiration is perhaps more appropriate after I am dead," he says.

Upon accepting a prize at the Cannes Film Festival for Taste of Cherry (1997), he received a hug and kiss from presenter Catherine Deneuve. Since public physical contacts between members of the opposite sexes, who are unrelated to one another, are banned by the Islamic government in Iran, Kiarostami's home country, he didn't return to his Tehran home for a week.

According to himself, Hou Hsiao-hsien, Andrei Tarkovsky, Federico Fellini and Theo Angelopoulos are on a similar wavelength as him.

Received the UNESCO Fellini-Medal in Gold for his achievements in film, freedom, peace, and tolerance.

On 9 March 2010 published an open letter in a Tehran newspaper, calling for the release of two directors, detained by the authorities on 1 March 2010. "Jafar Panahi and Mohammad Rasoulof are two filmmakers of the Iranian independent cinema, a cinema that for the past quarter of a century has served as an essential cultural element in expanding the name of this country across the globe. They belong to an expanded world culture, and are a part of international cinematic culture." Rasoulof was released from ward 209 of the Evin prison on 17 March 2010.

In this type of cinema, whether working with actors or non-actors, as much as you do direct them, if you allow yourself to be directed by them, then the end result will be much more pleasing. The real and individual strengths of the actors is allowed to be expressed and is something that does affect the audience very deeply.

My films have been progressing towards a certain kind of minimalism, even though it was never intended. Elements which can be eliminated have been eliminated. This was pointed out to me by somebody who referred to the paintings of Rembrandt and his use of light: some elements are highlighted while others are obscured or even pushed back into the dark. And it's something that we do - we bring out elements that we want to emphasize. I'm not claiming or denying that I have done such a thing but I do believe in [Robert] Bresson's method of creation through omission, not through addition.

I don't have very complete scripts for my films. I have a general outline and a character in my mind, and I make no notes until I find the character who's in my mind in reality. When I find the character, I try to spend time with them and get to know them very well. Therefore my notes are not from the character that I had in my mind before, but are instead based on the people I've met in real life. It's a long process, it may take six months. I only make notes, I don't write dialogs in full. And the notes are very much based on my knowledge of that person. Therefore when we start shooting I don't have rehearsals with them at all. So, rather than pulling them towards myself, I travel closer to them; it's very much closer to the real person than anything I try to create. So I give them something but I also take from them.

Good cinema is what we can believe and bad cinema is what we can't believe. What you see and believe in is very much what I'm interested in. And it's not so much a question of whether we've shot it through 35mm or digital video; what is important is whether the audience accepts it as real. It's very true that non-actors feel more comfortable in front of a digital camera, without the lights and the large crowd around them, and we arrive at much more intimate moments with them.

If we're not going to take full advantage of digital, then 35mm is a better medium. Especially for shooting dramas - I have no problem with 35mm. It seems that film-makers are being divided between those working in digital and those who are not. I think it's not something predetermined - it all depends on what project we have in mind, and on that basis we choose the medium.