title: Eurovision Song Contest 2017

text: It was announced on 30 April that the creative teams from both the Eurovision network and Twitter had worked together to create three emoji that would accompany specific promotional hashtags for the duration of the contest. The heart emoji would appear alongside "#ESC2017" and "#Eurovision", while the winners' trophy emoji would be used for "#12Points" and "#douzepoints". The final emoji is the logo for the contest, which would appear alongside "#CelebrateDiversity", the slogan of the contest.


title: Eurovision Song Contest 2017

text: The EBU released details regarding the opening and interval acts for each of the live shows on 20 April. The first semi-final was opened by Monatik performing "Spinning", while the interval featured Jamala performing a new version of her winning song "1944" and "Zamanyly". The second semi-final was opened by a medley of past Eurovision songs performed by co-presenters Oleksandr Skichko and Volodymyr Ostapchuk, while the interval featured a dance performance by Apache Crew titled "The Children's Courtyard". In the interval of the final, Jamala performed her new single "I Believe in U", and Onuka performed a megamix together with Ukraine's National Academic Orchestra of Folk Instruments.


title: Eurovision Song Contest 2017

text: Initially, on 31 October 2016, it was announced that forty-three countries were to participate in the contest, equalling the record set in and . and returned after a year's absence, while did not participate on financial grounds. had planned to participate but announced their withdrawal on 13 April 2017, after their representative, Julia Samoylova, was banned from entering Ukraine by virtue of travelling directly from Russia to Crimea, a region that was annexed by Russia in 2014, to give a performance, which is illegal under Ukrainian law. This subsequently reduced the number of participating countries to forty-two, the same number of countries as 2016.


title: Eurovision Song Contest 2017

text: The contest featured five representatives who also previously performed as lead vocalists for the same countries. Valentina Monetta, who performed in a duet this time, represented San Marino in three consecutive editions: , , and . The duo of Koit Toome and Laura Põldvere have both represented Estonia in different years: Toome in as a solo artist, finishing 12th place with the song "Mere lapsed", and Põldvere in as part of Suntribe, finishing 20th in the semi-final with the song "Let's Get Loud". Omar Naber represented Slovenia in 2005, finishing 12th in the semi-final with the song "Stop". This also made for one of the only occasions in which the same participants not only returned after originally competing in the same year, but also had both participations occur in the same host country (the only other recent example being 1982, which saw both Norway's Anita Skorgan and Belgium's Stella Maessen return to the United Kingdom for the second time after the 1977 contest). The SunStroke Project represented Moldova in alongside Olia Tira, finishing 22nd with the song "Run Away".


title: Eurovision Song Contest 2017

text: The contest also featured the group OG3NE which previously represented the Netherlands at another Eurovision event, the Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2007, as Lisa, Amy and Shelley, with the song "Adem in, adem uit". In addition, the contest featured two lead singers previously participating as backing vocalists for the same countries: Israel's representative Imri Ziv who backed Nadav Guedj in and Hovi Star in , and Serbia's representative Tijana Bogićević who backed Nina in .


title: Eurovision Song Contest 2017

text: Eighteen countries participated in the first semi-final. , and voted in this semi-final. The highlighted countries qualified for the final.


title: Eurovision Song Contest 2017

text: Eighteen countries participated in the second semi-final. , and voted in this semi-final. was originally planned to perform in position three, but withdrew from the contest after the artist they selected was banned from entering Ukraine, resulting in countries originally planned to perform fourth and later, to do so one place earlier. The highlighted countries qualified for the final.


title: Eurovision Song Contest 2017

text: Twenty-six countries participated in the final, with all 42 participating countries eligible to vote. The running order for the final was revealed after the second semi-final qualifiers' press conference on 11 May.


title: Eurovision Song Contest 2017

text: Below is a summary of the maximum 12 points awarded by each country's professional jury and televote in the first semi-final. Countries in bold gave the maximum 24 points (12 points apiece from professional jury and televoting) to the specified entrant.


title: Eurovision Song Contest 2017

text: Below is a summary of the maximum 12 points awarded by each country's professional jury and televote in the second semi-final. Countries in bold gave the maximum 24 points (12 points apiece from professional jury and televoting) to the specified entrant.


title: Eurovision Song Contest 2017

text: Below is a summary of the maximum 12 points awarded by each country's professional jury and televote in the final. Countries in bold gave the maximum 24 points (12 points apiece from professional jury and televoting) to the specified entrant.


title: Eurovision Song Contest 2017

text: The spokespersons announced the 12-point score from their respective country's national jury in the following order:


title: Eurovision Song Contest 2017

text: Eligibility for potential participation in the Eurovision Song Contest requires a national broadcaster with active EBU membership that would be able to broadcast the contest via the Eurovision network. The EBU issued an invitation to participate in the contest to all active members and associate member Australia.


title: Eurovision Song Contest 2017

text: Most countries sent commentators to Kyiv or commentated from their own country, in order to add insight to the participants and, if necessary, the provision of voting information. The EBU announced on 9 May, that all three shows would also be streamed live via YouTube.


title: Eurovision Song Contest 2017

text: It was reported by the EBU that the contest was viewed by a worldwide television audience of approximately 182 million viewers, which was 22 million less than the 2016 record which was viewed by 204 million. The EBU stated that this decrease in viewing figures was likely a result of the withdrawal of Russia and its decision not to broadcast any of the three shows.


title: Eurovision Song Contest 2017

text: In December 2016, Grytsak was appointed as a new head of the organising committee. In February 2017, 21 team members resigned claiming that the new appointment effectively stopped the work for two months.


title: Eurovision Song Contest 2017

text: France 2 announced on 9 February 2017 that they would participate at the contest with the song "", performed by Alma. However, it was discovered during the week of 17 February that "Requiem" had been recorded and performed prior to 1 September 2016, the submission deadline set by the EBU, potentially violating the rules of the contest. Further investigation revealed that "Requiem" had been performed at the end of January 2015. While France 2 had claimed not to be in breach of the rules of the contest, no ultimate decision had been made regarding their potential disqualification. No further reports were made regarding Alma's participation, and she was able to partake in the competition in May with a revised version of the song.


title: Eurovision Song Contest 2017

text: Channel One Russia (C1R) announced on 12 March 2017 that they would participate at the contest with "Flame Is Burning", performed by Julia Samoylova. However, Samoylova was issued a three-year travel ban on entering Ukraine by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) on 22 March, by virtue of illegally travelling directly from Russia to Crimea, a region that was annexed by Russia in 2014, in 2015 to give a performance. Entry to Crimea by non-Ukrainian citizens via Russia is illegal under Ukrainian law; however, Samoylova confirmed that she performed in Crimea in 2015.


title: Eurovision Song Contest 2017

text: The EBU responded by stating its commitment to ensuring that all participating countries would be able to perform in Kyiv, while expressing their disappointment at the lack of compromise from C1R and UA:PBC. C1R were offered the opportunity to allow Samoylova to perform via satellite from a venue of their choice, but such a compromise was rejected by both C1R and the Ukrainian Government.


title: Eurovision Song Contest 2017

text: The Director General of the EBU, Ingrid Deltenre, condemned Ukraine's actions, describing them as "abusing the contest for political reasons" and "absolutely unacceptable" C1R announced their withdrawal from the contest on 13 April, stating that they also might not broadcast the contest. C1R had not organised accommodation before their artist announcement, as is typically the case, and refused to attend the meeting of Heads of Delegation. By announcing their artist just before the deadline for entry submission to the contest and not booking a hotel, it was speculated that C1R had not intended to go due to audiences booing Russian artists in previous contests.


title: Eurovision Song Contest 2017

text: As part of the Russian Victory Day celebrations on 9 May, Samoylova gave another performance in Crimea, including "Flame Is Burning", the song which was intended to represent Russia at the contest.


title: Eurovision Song Contest 2017

text: Under a proposal by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon, the Israeli Broadcasting Authority (IBA) was reorganised into two separate entities: the Israeli Public Broadcasting Corporation (IPBC), with responsibility for "general programming" such as entertainment, and another with responsibility for news and current affairs programming. The IPBC is also branded as Kan (). The EBU informed the IPBC executive board on 7 April that such a compromise would render them unable to remain a member without an outlet for news and current events programming. It was then reported that the IBA may cease to be a member of the EBU.


title: Eurovision Song Contest 2017

text: The IBA was expected to close down on 15 May 2017, before the IPBC was expected to launch. However, on 9 and 10 May 2017, the IBA unexpectedly closed down most of their operations in news and current affair programs. The 2017 contest was the last program that Channel 1 aired under the IBA, where a skeleton staff of twenty people remained to ensure a smooth transmission of the shows on Channel 1. After the contest ended, the station displayed a slide about its closure. During the jury voting segment of the final, Ofer Nachshon, the Israeli voting spokesperson since 2009, bid farewell on behalf of the IBA before revealing their jury points. This was incorrectly reported by several international media outlets as Israel leaving the contest.


title: Eurovision Song Contest 2017

text: The IPBC applied for EBU membership later that year and was accepted, thus Israel continued to participate. They went on to win the contest , and subsequently earned the right to host the . However, the EBU warned that the pending plan to make the IPBC's news department a separate entity conflicted with rules requiring member broadcasters to handle both news and entertainment programming. As a high-court decision on the split approached, Netanyahu stated that the Israeli government would comply with EBU rules to protect its hosting rights for the 2019 edition. The High Court of Justice later issued a temporary injunction, blocking the split. The split was eventually cancelled permanently, allowing the IPBC to meet all requirements for joining the EBU.


title: Eurovision Song Contest 2017

text: Norsk rikskringkasting (NRK) had discussions with the EBU regarding the abolition of the rule prohibiting pre-recorded vocals during live performances at the contest. Such a rule is intended to guarantee the authenticity of live performances. The discussion stems from when Norwegian representative Jowst stated his displeasure at the rule in an interview on 24 March, in reference to the sampling technique of chopped vocals in his song "Grab the Moment" which cannot be attributed in the live performance.


title: Eurovision Song Contest 2017

text: Such discussions were also in place in , when pre-recorded vocals during the Croatian entry, "Marija Magdalena", performed by Doris Dragović, led to objections by the Norwegian delegation — led at the time by Jon Ola Sand. Such objections led the EBU to consider deducting a third of Croatia's final score, reducing it from 118 points to 79. However, such a deduction never occurred. The possible abolition of the rule, alongside the abolition of the live orchestra in 1999, has led some fans and critics of the contest to argue that the contest has become too commercialised and the authenticity of live performances has been compromised.


title: Eurovision Song Contest 2017

text: After discussing the matter with the EBU, NRK were granted an exception to the rule. Jowst stated that "[the Norwegian delegation] have now been allowed to use the recorded vocal tracks, [...]. But [they] have also practiced a plan B with the backing vocalists, if there are big protests from others in Kyiv." Both Jowst and Aleksander Walmann think that had "Grab the Moment" been in the semi-final of the 2018 contest following an abolition of the rule, they would have had an advantage. NRK stated on 2 May that Jowst was aiming to perform the song acoustically as a back-up, by bringing two additional backing vocalists who would perform the pre-recorded vocals live using a filter applied by the sound engineering team so as not to compromise on sound quality.


title: Eurovision Song Contest 2017

text: Norwegian jury member Per Sundnes made comments on NRK preview show "Adresse Kiev" on 17 April 2017 against Irish representative Brendan Murray, saying: "It's been a long time since they've gotten up and I do not think they'll do it again. They try the same formula year after year." The comments were not welcomed by the Irish delegation, who subsequently reported the matter to the EBU.


title: Eurovision Song Contest 2017

text: The Irish Independent reported on 8 May that Sundnes had been replaced due to an alleged breach in jury rules. Commenting on the decision, the Head of Delegation for Ireland, Michael Kealy, said: "I'm glad that the European Broadcasting Union have reacted swiftly to this situation and that all jury members are impartial. It's only fair that each song in the Eurovision Song Contest is judged on its individual merits on the night." Sundnes was subsequently replaced by Erland Bakke.


title: Eurovision Song Contest 2017

text: Sundnes stated in an interview with Verdens Gang on 9 May: "I do not know anything about the jury stuff, just that I'm not [in it]. It was not really surprising. The same thing happened in Sweden last year with the Swedish professional jury."


title: Eurovision Song Contest 2017

text: NRK admits that they made a mistake by letting Sundnes sit in both the professional jury and the judging panel of "Adresse Kiev". However, when they were informed by the EBU that this was against the rules, they rectified the situation quickly. Project manager for Melodi Grand Prix and Norwegian Head of Delegation, Stig Karlsen, stated: "We have received some concerns from several teams that Per has been in the jury, while at the same time he has been meaningful in the program. Therefore, we took a new assessment."


title: Eurovision Song Contest 2017

text: On 11 May 2017, during the transmission of the second semi-final, the microphone of the Estonian representative seemed to have malfunctioned as singer Laura Põldvere could not be heard for approximately two seconds by viewers at home. It was later revealed that the Estonian delegation considered appealing to the EBU to allow Põldvere and Koit Toome to perform their entry "Verona" again as a result of the error, but later decided against it. Mart Normet, the Head of Delegation for Estonia, explained "If there has been such a powerful performance for three minutes and given an absolute maximum, then this energy again does not come back when you go on stage again". The EBU responded to the situation, reportedly describing the error as purely technical, as the microphone was supposed to automatically come on. Instead, a sound technician was forced to respond by manually switching on the microphone via the sound desk. The country ultimately failed to reach the grand final, with Põldvere expressing her annoyance, however stating "I do not think it’s so tremendously influenced when a few words remain unheard".


title: Eurovision Song Contest 2017

text: The Portuguese representative Salvador Sobral drew attention to the European migrant crisis by turning up to the first semi-final winners' press conference in an "S.O.S. Refugees" shirt. "If I'm here and I have European exposure, the least thing I can do is a humanitarian message", Sobral stated. "People come to Europe in plastic boats and are being asked to show their birth certificates in order to enter a country. These people are not immigrants, they're refugees running from death. Make no mistake. There is so much bureaucratic stuff happening in the refugee camps in Greece, Turkey and Italy and we should help create legal and safe pathways from these countries to their destiny countries", he added, earning a round of applause. Later on, the EBU ordered a ban so that he could not wear it for the remainder of the contest. The EBU explained that Sobral's jumper was used as a means of "political message," which violates the rules of the contest. However, Sobral argued in his winning press conference that it was not political, but a message of humanitarianism.


title: Eurovision Song Contest 2017

text: Jamala's performance of her song "I Believe in U" during the interval of the final was disrupted by a man draped in an Australian flag who invaded the stage and briefly mooned the audience before being removed by security. He was later identified as Ukrainian prankster Vitalii Sediuk. In their response to the incident, the EBU stated the following: "A person took to the stage at the beginning of Jamala's performance of 'I Believe in U' at tonight's Eurovision Song Contest in Kyiv. He was quickly removed from the stage by security and out of the arena. He is currently being held and questioned by the police at the venue police office." The last time an unauthorised person gained access to the stage was in 2010 when the Spanish performance was disrupted by Jimmy Jump.


title: Eurovision Song Contest 2017

text: In addition to the main winner's trophy, the Marcel Bezençon Awards and the Barbara Dex Award were contested during the 2017 Eurovision Song Contest. The OGAE, "General Organisation of Eurovision Fans" voting poll also took place before the contest.


title: Eurovision Song Contest 2017

text: The Marcel Bezençon Awards, organised since 2002 by Sweden's then-Head of Delegation and 1992 representative Christer Björkman, and 1984 winner Richard Herrey, honours songs in the contest's final. The awards are divided into three categories: Artistic Award, Composers Award, and Press Award. The winners were revealed shortly before the final on 13 May.


title: Eurovision Song Contest 2017

text: OGAE, an organisation of over forty Eurovision Song Contest fan clubs across Europe and beyond, conducts an annual voting poll first held in 2002 as the Marcel Bezençon Fan Award. The 2017 poll ran from 1 to 30 April with a daily-publishing of adding the votes of 44 clubs, and after all votes were cast, the top-ranked entry was Italy's "" performed by Francesco Gabbani; the top five results are shown below.


title: Eurovision Song Contest 2017

text: The Barbara Dex Award is a humorous fan award given to the worst dressed artist each year. Named after Belgium's representative who came last in the 1993 contest, wearing her self-designed dress, the award was handed for the first year by the fansite songfestival.be after the fansite House of Eurovision organised it from 1997 to 2016.


title: Eurovision Song Contest 2017

text: Eurovision Song Contest: Kyiv 2017 is the official compilation album of the contest, put together by the European Broadcasting Union and was released by Universal Music Group digitally on 21 April and physically on 28 April 2017. The album features all 42 participating entries, including the semi-finalists that failed to qualify for the final. The album also features the Russian entry which withdrew from the contest on 13 April 2017. This is the second consecutive year that the official album featured a song which had withdrawn before the contest.


title: Central Armed Police Forces

text: Central Armed Police Forces (CAPF) is the collective name of central police organisations in India under the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA). These are technically paramilitary forces formerly known as Central Para-Military Forces (CPMF). Since 2011, India adopted the term "central armed police forces" to drop the word "paramilitary". These forces are responsible for internal security and guarding the borders.


title: Central Armed Police Forces

text: CAPF is further classified into three: Border Guarding Forces—Assam Rifles (AR), Border Security Force (BSF), Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP), and Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB); Forces for Internal Security—Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) and Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF); and Special Task Force—National Security Guard (NSG).


title: Central Armed Police Forces

text: CAPF were formerly known as Central Para-Military Forces (CPMF), also various referred by Central Police Organisations (CPOs), Para-Military Forces (PMF) and Central Police Forces (CPF) interchangeably. In 2011, the Government of India released a circular adopting a uniform nomenclature to change the name of the forces to Central Armed Police Forces under the Ministry of Home Affairs. Initially, only five forces—BSF, CRPF, CISF, ITBP and SSB were covered under the new nomenclature, since AR was under the operational control of the Indian Army and NSG personnel were completely deputed from the Indian Army and other CAPFs. The name change was made for political reasons, to improve the international impression of the force, since in some countries the paramilitary refers to militant groups.


title: Central Armed Police Forces

text: Central Armed Police Forces are organised with the primary role of border guarding for AR, BSF, ITBP, SSB; Security of sensitive establishments by CISF, Assisting Police to tackle Law & Order, Counter-Terrorist Operations, Counter Naxal Operations by CRPF, NSG. Apart from the primary role, all CAPFs are involved in assisting Police in Law & Order situations and also Army in Counter-Terrorist Operations. BSF & CRPF have assisted the army during external aggression in the past. CAPFs work along with both Indian Army & Police in different roles assigned to them.


title: Central Armed Police Forces

text: Central Armed Police Forces personnel also serve in various important organisations such as Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), Special Protection Group (SPG), National Investigation Agency (NIA), Intelligence Bureau (IB), Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) State Armed Police Force (Jharkhand Jaguars, Bihar Military Police, UP/MP STF, DRG, IRB, Chattishgarh Armed Police etc.) on deputation and have attachment/training in various levels/formations/courses along with the Indian Army. Their role and performance, therefore, assumes a great significance due to the special features of an emergency force which is pressed in aid to the civil power to perform multiple roles in extremely difficult situations.


title: Central Armed Police Forces

text: The Assam Rifles is a central police and paramilitary organisation responsible for border security, counter-insurgency, and law and order in Northeast India. Its primary role is to guard the 1,643 kilometre long Indo-Myanmar border. The AR comes under the administration of the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), while its operational control is maintained by the Indian Army. It is the oldest paramilitary force in India.


title: Central Armed Police Forces

text: The primary role of the Border Security Force is to guard the Indo-Pakistan and Indo-Bangladesh borders, it is deployed both on the international border and the LOC. The BSF also has active roles during times of war. It has 292,000 personnel in 192 battalions. The 1, 2 and 7 battalion of NDRF are requisitioned from BSF. It is also known for being the largest dedicated border guarding force in the world.


title: Central Armed Police Forces

text: One of the largest industrial security forces in the world, the Central Industrial Security Force provides security to various Public Sector Undertakings (PSUs) and other critical infrastructure installations, major airports across the country and provides security during elections and other internal security duties and VVIP protection. It has a total strength of about 144,418 personnel in 132 battalions including 9 reserve battalions.


title: Central Armed Police Forces

text: The Central Reserve Police Force is the largest of the Central Armed Police Forces units with 313,678 personnel in 247 battalions. The Central Reserve Police includes:


title: Central Armed Police Forces

text: The Indo-Tibetan Border Police is deployed for guarding duties on the Indo-China border from Karakoram Pass in Ladakh to Diphu Pass in Arunachal Pradesh covering a total distance of 3,488 km. It has 89,432 personnel in 56 fighting battalions, 2 DM and 4 specialised battalions.


title: Central Armed Police Forces

text: The National Security Guard (NSG), commonly known as Black Cats, is a counter-terrorism unit under the Ministry of Home Affairs. It was founded on 16 October 1984 under the National Security Guard Act, 1986. All personnel are deputed from other CAPFs and the Indian Army.


title: Central Armed Police Forces

text: The objective of the Sashastra Seema Bal (English: "Armed Border Force") is to guard the Indo-Nepal and Indo-Bhutan borders. It has 76,337 personnel and 67 battalions, as well as some reserved battalions.


title: Central Armed Police Forces

text: On 5 February 2019, the Supreme Court of India ruled that five CAPFs would be granted Non-Functional Financial Upgradation (NFFU), and the status of Organised Group ‘A’ Services (OGAS), ending a nearly decade-long battle for the central armed police. In the judgment by Rohinton Fali Nariman and M. R. Shah, the court said that officers from BSF, CRPF, SSB, ITBP, and CISF should be granted the NFFU and will be considered as Organised Group A Central Services.


title: Central Armed Police Forces

text: In July 2019, the Union Cabinet granted Organised Group 'A' Service (OGAS) status to Group 'A' executive cadre officers of five Central Armed Police Forces (CAPF). It also extended the benefit of Non-Functional Financial Up-gradation(NFFU) and Non-Functional Selection Grade (NFSG) to the executive cadre officers at an enhanced rate of 30%.


title: Central Armed Police Forces

text: Recruitment of candidates to the CAPFs may be conducted by the Union Public Service Commission, the Staff Selection Commission, or the respective service HQs depending on the post to be filled.


title: Central Armed Police Forces

text: Officers in CAPFs are recruited through the Central Armed Police Forces (Assistant Commandants) Examination conducted by UPSC. They are appointed as Assistant Commandants and are Gazetted Officers generally referred to as DAGOs (Directly Appointed Gazetted Officers) in CRPF, AC (Direct Entry) in BSF. DEGOs (Departmental Entry Gazetted Officers) are those officers who have been promoted through departmental exams conducted internally for Subordinate Officers. They are known as encounter specialists among police forces of India.


title: Central Armed Police Forces

text: Sub Inspectors are recruited through competitive examination conducted by Staff Selection Commission and they are referred to as DASOs (Directly Appointed Subordinate Officers). DESOs (Departmental Entry Subordinate Officers) are those officers who have been promoted through departmental exams conducted internally for Constables, Head Constables, and Assistant Sub Inspectors.


title: Central Armed Police Forces

text: Constables are recruited through a competitive examination conducted by Staff Selection Commission. Apart from the above modes, CAPFs conduct recruitment for specialized posts such as Engineers, Doctors, etc. among DAGOs and Wireless operators, Technicians, Nursing Staff, etc. among subordinate officers and constables directly under their own authority (MoHF).


title: Central Armed Police Forces

text: Women were not recruited for the Central Armed Police Forces, until 1992. Earlier, the role of women was limited to supervisory roles. The Parliamentary Committees of India for women's empowerment recommended expanding women's roles in CAPF. The Ministry of Home Affairs declared reservation for women in constabulary, and later declared that they can also be inducted as officers in combat roles in five CAPFs. The Union Home Minister announced that women's representation in the CRPF and CISF would be made 15 percent while it would be 5 percent in the BSF, ITBP and SSB. In 2016, it was decided that 33 percent of posts at the constabulary level would be reserved for women in the CRPF and the CISF, and 14-15 percent of posts at the constable level in the BSF, SSB and ITBP in a phased manner.


title: Abbas Kiarostami

text: Abbas Kiarostami ( ; 22 June 1940 – 4 July 2016) was an Iranian film director, screenwriter, poet, photographer, and film producer. An active filmmaker from 1970, Kiarostami had been involved in the production of over forty films, including shorts and documentaries. Kiarostami attained critical acclaim for directing the "Koker" trilogy (1987–1994), "Close-Up" (1990), "The Wind Will Carry Us" (1999), and "Taste of Cherry" (1997), which was awarded the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival that year. In later works, "Certified Copy" (2010) and "Like Someone in Love" (2012), he filmed for the first time outside Iran: in Italy and Japan, respectively. His films "Where Is the Friend's Home?" (1987), "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 famous decennial "Sight & Sound" poll conducted in 2012.


title: Abbas Kiarostami

text: Kiarostami had worked extensively 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. He was part of a generation of filmmakers in the Iranian New Wave, a Persian cinema movement that started in the late 1960s and emphasized the use of poetic dialogue and allegorical storytelling dealing with political and philosophical issues.


title: Abbas Kiarostami

text: Kiarostami had a reputation 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 is also known for his use of Persian poetry in the dialogue, titles, and themes of his films. Kiarostami's 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 Kiarostami's works.


title: Abbas Kiarostami

text: Kiarostami was born in Tehran. His first artistic experience was painting, which he continued into his late teens, winning a painting competition at the age of 18 shortly before he left home to study at the University of Tehran School of Fine Arts. He majored in painting and graphic design and supported his studies by working as a traffic policeman.


title: Abbas Kiarostami

text: As a painter, designer, and illustrator, Kiarostami worked in advertising in the 1960s, designing posters and creating commercials. Between 1962 and 1966, he 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.


title: Abbas Kiarostami

text: In 1970 when the Iranian New Wave began with Dariush Mehrjui's film "Gāv", Kiarostami helped set up a filmmaking department at the Institute for Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults (Kanun) in Tehran. Its debut production, and Kiarostami's first film, was the twelve-minute "The Bread and Alley" (1970), a neo-realistic short film about a schoolboy's confrontation with an aggressive dog. "Breaktime" followed in 1972. The department became one of Iran's most noted film studios, producing not only Kiarostami's films but acclaimed Persian films such as "The Runner" and "Bashu, the Little Stranger".


title: Abbas Kiarostami

text: In the 1970s, Kiarostami pursued an individualistic style of film making. When discussing his first film, he stated:


title: Abbas Kiarostami

text: "Bread and Alley" was my first experience in cinema and I must say a very difficult one. I had to work with a very young child, a dog, and an unprofessional crew except for the cinematographer, who was nagging and complaining all the time. Well, the cinematographer, in a sense, was right because I did not follow the conventions of film making that he had become accustomed to.


title: Abbas Kiarostami

text: Following "The Experience" (1973), Kiarostami released "The Traveler" ("Mossafer") in 1974. "The Traveler" tells the story of Qassem Julayi, a troubled and troublesome boy from a small Iranian city. Intent on attending a football match in far-off Tehran, he scams his friends and neighbors to raise money, and journeys to the stadium in time for the game, only to meet with an ironic twist of fate. In addressing the boy's determination to reach his goal, alongside his indifference to the effects of his amoral actions, the film examined human behavior and the balance of right and wrong. It furthered Kiarostami's reputation for realism, diegetic simplicity, and stylistic complexity, as well as his fascination with physical and spiritual journeys.


title: Abbas Kiarostami

text: In 1975, Kiarostami directed two short films "So Can I" and "Two Solutions for One Problem". In early 1976, he released "Colors", followed by the fifty-four-minute film "A Wedding Suit", a story about three teenagers coming into conflict over a suit for a wedding.


title: Abbas Kiarostami

text: Kiarostami's first feature film was the 112-minute "Report" (1977). It revolved around the life of a tax collector accused of accepting bribes; suicide was among its themes. In 1979, he produced and directed "First Case, Second Case".


title: Abbas Kiarostami

text: In the early 1980s, Kiarostami directed several short films including "Toothache" (1980), "Orderly or Disorderly" (1981), and "The Chorus" (1982). In 1983, he directed "Fellow Citizen." It was not until his release of "Where Is the Friend's Home?" (1987) that he began to gain recognition outside Iran.These films created the basis of his later productions.


title: Abbas Kiarostami

text: The film tells a simple account of a conscientious eight-year-old schoolboy's quest to return his friend's notebook in a neighboring village lest his friend be expelled from school. The traditional beliefs of Iranian rural people are portrayed. The film has been noted for its poetic use of the Iranian rural landscape and its realism, both important elements of Kiarostami's work. Kiarostami made the film from a child's point of view.


title: Abbas Kiarostami

text: "Where Is the Friend's Home?", "And Life Goes On" (1992) (also known as "Life and Nothing More"), and "Through the Olive Trees" (1994) are described by critics as the "Koker trilogy", because all three films feature the village of Koker in northern Iran. The films also relate to the 1990 Manjil–Rudbar earthquake, in which 40,000 people died. Kiarostami uses the themes of life, death, change, and continuity to connect the films. The trilogy was successful in France in the 1990s and other Western European countries such as the Netherlands, Sweden, Germany and Finland. But, 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 1987, Kiarostami was involved in the screenwriting of "The Key", which he edited but did not direct. In 1989, he released "Homework".


title: Abbas Kiarostami

text: Kiarostami's first film of the decade was "Close-Up" (1990), which narrates the story of the real-life trial of a man who impersonated film-maker Mohsen Makhmalbaf, conning a family into believing they would star in his new film. The family suspects theft as the motive for this charade, but the impersonator, Hossein Sabzian, argues that his motives were more complex. The part-documentary, part-staged film examines Sabzian's moral justification for usurping Makhmalbaf's identity, questioning his ability to sense his cultural and artistic flair. Ranked No. 42 in British Film Institute's The Top 50 Greatest Films of All Time, "Close-Up" received praise from directors such as Quentin Tarantino, Martin Scorsese, Werner Herzog, Jean-Luc Godard, and Nanni Moretti and was released across Europe.


title: Abbas Kiarostami

text: In 1992, Kiarostami directed "Life, and Nothing More...", regarded by critics as the second film of the "Koker trilogy". The film follows a father and his young son as they drive from Tehran to Koker in search of two young boys who they fear might have perished in the 1990 earthquake. As the father and son travel through the devastated landscape, they meet earthquake survivors forced to carry on with their lives amid disaster.


title: Abbas Kiarostami

text: That year Kiarostami won a Prix Roberto Rossellini, the first professional film award of his career, for his direction of the film. The last film of the so-called "Koker trilogy" was "Through the Olive Trees" (1994), which expands a peripheral scene from "Life and Nothing More" into the central drama.


title: Abbas Kiarostami

text: Critics such as Adrian Martin have called the style of filmmaking in the "Koker trilogy" as "diagrammatical", linking the zig-zagging patterns in the landscape and the geometry of forces of life and the world. A flashback of the zigzag path in "Life and Nothing More..." (1992) in turn triggers the spectator's memory of the previous film, "Where Is the Friend's Home?" from 1987, shot before the earthquake. This symbolically links to the post-earthquake reconstruction in "Through the Olive Trees" in 1994. In 1995, Miramax Films released "Through the Olive Trees" in the US theaters.


title: Abbas Kiarostami

text: Kiarostami next wrote the screenplays for "The Journey" and "The White Balloon" (1995), for his former assistant Jafar Panahi. Between 1995 and 1996, he was involved in the production of "Lumière and Company", a collaboration with 40 other film directors.


title: Abbas Kiarostami

text: Kiarostami won the "Palme d'Or" (Golden Palm) award at the Cannes Film Festival for "Taste of Cherry." It is the drama of a man, Mr. Badii, determined to commit suicide. The film involved themes such as morality, the legitimacy of the act of suicide, and the meaning of compassion.


title: Abbas Kiarostami

text: Kiarostami directed "The Wind Will Carry Us" in 1999, which won the Grand Jury Prize (Silver Lion) at the Venice International Film Festival. The film contrasted rural and urban views on the dignity of labor, addressing themes of gender equality and the benefits of progress, by means of a stranger's sojourn in a remote Kurdish village. An unusual feature of the movie is that many of the characters are heard but not seen; at least thirteen to fourteen speaking characters in the film are never seen.


title: Abbas Kiarostami

text: In 2000, at the San Francisco Film Festival award ceremony, Kiarostami was awarded the Akira Kurosawa Prize for lifetime achievement in directing, but surprised everyone by giving it away to veteran Iranian actor Behrooz Vossoughi for his contribution to Iranian cinema.


title: Abbas Kiarostami

text: In 2001, Kiarostami and his assistant, Seifollah Samadian, traveled to Kampala, Uganda at the request of the United Nations International Fund for Agricultural Development, to film a documentary about programs assisting Ugandan orphans. He stayed for ten days and made "ABC Africa". The trip was originally intended as research in preparation for the filming, but Kiarostami ended up editing the entire film from the video footage shot there. The high number of orphans in Uganda has resulted from the deaths of parents in the AIDS epidemic.


title: Abbas Kiarostami

text: "Time Out" editor and National Film Theatre chief programmer, Geoff Andrew, said in referring to the film: "Like his previous four features, this film is not about death but life-and-death: how they're linked, and what attitude we might adopt with regard to their symbiotic inevitability."


title: Abbas Kiarostami

text: The following year, Kiarostami directed "Ten", revealing an unusual method of filmmaking and abandoning many scriptwriting conventions. Kiarostami focused on the socio-political landscape of Iran. The images are seen through the eyes of one woman as she drives through the streets of Tehran over a period of several days. Her journey is composed of ten conversations with various passengers, which include her sister, a hitchhiking prostitute, and a jilted bride and her demanding young son. This style of filmmaking was praised by a number of critics.


title: Abbas Kiarostami

text: A. O. Scott in "The New York Times" wrote that Kiarostami, "in addition to being perhaps the most internationally admired Iranian filmmaker of the past decade, is also among the world masters of automotive cinema...He understands the automobile as a place of reflection, observation and, above all, talk."


title: Abbas Kiarostami

text: In 2003, Kiarostami directed "Five", a poetic feature with no dialogue or characterization. It consists of five long shots of nature which are single-take sequences, shot with a hand-held DV camera, along the shores of the Caspian Sea. Although the film lacks a clear storyline, Geoff Andrew argues that the film is "more than just pretty pictures". He adds, "Assembled in order, they comprise a kind of abstract or emotional narrative arc, which moves evocatively from separation and solitude to community, from motion to rest, near-silence to sound and song, light to darkness and back to light again, ending on a note of rebirth and regeneration."He notes the degree of artifice concealed behind the apparent simplicity of the imagery.


title: Abbas Kiarostami

text: In 2005, Kiarostami contributed the central section to "Tickets", a portmanteau film set on a train traveling through Italy. The other segments were directed by Ken Loach and Ermanno Olmi.


title: Abbas Kiarostami

text: In 2008, Kiarostami directed the feature "Shirin," which features close-ups of many notable Iranian actresses and the French actress Juliette Binoche as they watch a film based on a partly mythological Persian romance tale of Khosrow and Shirin, with themes of female self-sacrifice. The film has been described as "a compelling exploration of the relationship between image, sound and female spectatorship."


title: Abbas Kiarostami

text: That summer, he directed Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's opera "Così fan tutte" conducted by Christophe Rousset at Festival d'Aix-en-Provence starring with William Shimell. But the following year's performances at the English National Opera was impossible to direct because of refusal of permission to travel abroad.


title: Abbas Kiarostami

text: "Certified Copy" (2010), again starring Juliette Binoche, was made in Tuscany and was Kiarostami's first film to be shot and produced outside Iran. The story of an encounter between a British man and a French woman, it was entered in competition for the Palme d'Or in the 2010 Cannes Film Festival. Peter Bradshaw of "The Guardian" describes the film as an "intriguing oddity", and said, ""Certified Copy" is the deconstructed portrait of a marriage, acted with well-intentioned fervour by Juliette Binoche, but persistently baffling, contrived, and often simply bizarre – a highbrow misfire of the most peculiar sort." He concluded that the film is "unmistakably an example of Kiarostami's compositional technique, though not a successful example." Roger Ebert, however, praised the film, noting that "Kiarostami is rather brilliant in the way he creates offscreen spaces." Binoche won the Best Actress Award at Cannes for her performance in the film. Kiarostami's penultimate film, "Like Someone in Love", set and shot in Japan, received largely positive reviews from critics.


title: Abbas Kiarostami

text: Kiarostami's final film "24 Frames" was released posthumously in 2017. An experimental film based on 24 of Kiarostami's still photographs, "24 Frames" enjoyed a highly positive critical reception, with a Rotten Tomatoes score of 92%.


title: Abbas Kiarostami

text: Kiarostami was a jury member at numerous film festivals, most notably the Cannes Film Festival in 1993, 2002 and 2005. He was also the president of the Caméra d'Or Jury in Cannes Film Festival 2005. He was announced as the president of the Cinéfondation and short film sections of the 2014 Cannes Film Festival.


title: Abbas Kiarostami

text: Other representatives include the Venice Film Festival in 1985, the Locarno International Film Festival in 1990, the San Sebastian International Film Festival in 1996, the São Paulo International Film Festival in 2004, the Capalbio Cinema Festival in 2007 (in which he was president of the jury), and the Küstendorf Film and Music Festival in 2011. He also made regular appearances at many other film festivals across Europe, including the Estoril Film Festival in Portugal.


title: Abbas Kiarostami

text: Though Kiarostami has been compared to Satyajit Ray, Vittorio De Sica, Éric Rohmer, and Jacques Tati, his films exhibit a singular style, often employing techniques of his own invention.


title: Abbas Kiarostami

text: During the filming of "The Bread and Alley" in 1970, Kiarostami had major differences with his experienced cinematographer about how to film the boy and the attacking dog. While the cinematographer wanted separate shots of the boy approaching, a close-up of his hand as he enters the house and closes the door, followed by a shot of the dog, Kiarostami believed that if the three scenes could be captured as a whole it would have a more profound impact in creating tension over the situation. That one shot took around forty days to complete until Kiarostami was fully content with the scene. Kiarostami later commented that the breaking of scenes would have disrupted the rhythm and content of the film's structure, preferring to let the scene flow as one.


title: Abbas Kiarostami

text: Unlike other directors, Kiarostami showed no interest in staging extravagant combat scenes or complicated chase scenes in large-scale productions, instead of attempting to mold the medium of film to his own specifications. Kiarostami appeared to have settled on his style with the "Koker trilogy", which included a myriad of references to his own film material, connecting common themes and subject matter between each of the films. Stephen Bransford has contended that Kiarostami's films do not contain references to the work of other directors, but are fashioned in such a manner that they are self-referenced. Bransford believes his films are often fashioned into an ongoing dialectic with one film reflecting on and partially demystifying an earlier film.


title: Abbas Kiarostami

text: He continued experimenting with new modes of filming, using different directorial methods and techniques. A case in point is "Ten", which was filmed in a moving automobile in which Kiarostami was not present. He gave suggestions to the actors about what to do, and a camera placed on the dashboard filmed them while they drove around Tehran. The camera was allowed to roll, capturing the faces of the people involved during their daily routine, using a series of extreme-close shots. "Ten" was an experiment that used digital cameras to virtually eliminate the director. This new direction towards a "digital micro-cinema" is defined as a micro-budget filmmaking practice, allied with a digital production basis.


title: Abbas Kiarostami

text: Kiarostami's cinema offers a different definition of "film". According to film professors such as Jamsheed Akrami of William Paterson University, Kiarostami consistently tried to redefine film by forcing the increased involvement of the audience. In his later years, he also progressively trimmed the timespan within his films. Akrami thinks that this reduces filmmaking from a collective endeavor to a purer, more basic form of artistic expression.


title: Abbas Kiarostami

text: Kiarostami's films contain a notable degree of ambiguity, an unusual mixture of simplicity and complexity, and often a mix of fictional and documentary elements (docufiction). Kiarostami has stated, "We can never get close to the truth except through lying."


title: Abbas Kiarostami

text: The boundary between fiction and non-fiction is significantly reduced in Kiarostami's cinema. The French philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy, writing about Kiarostami, and in particular "Life and Nothing More...", has argued that his films are neither quite fiction nor quite documentary. "Life and Nothing More...", he argues, is neither representation nor reportage, but rather ""evidence"":


title: Abbas Kiarostami

text: [I]t all looks like reporting, but everything underscores ("indique à l'évidence") that it is the fiction of a documentary (in fact, Kiarostami shot the film several months after the earthquake), and that it is rather a document about "fiction": not in the sense of imagining the unreal, but in the very specific and precise sense of the technique, of the "art" of constructing images. For the image by means of which, each time, each opens a world and precedes himself in it ("s'y précède") is not pregiven ("donnée toute faite") (as are those of dreams, phantasms or bad films): it is to be invented, cut and edited. Thus it is "evidence", insofar as, if one day I happen to "look" at my street on which I walk up and down ten times a day, I construct for an instant a new "evidence" of my street.


title: Abbas Kiarostami

text: For Jean-Luc Nancy, this notion of cinema as ""evidence"", rather than as documentary or imagination, is tied to the way Kiarostami deals with life-and-death (cf. the remark by Geoff Andrew on "ABC Africa", cited above, to the effect that Kiarostami's films are not about death but about life-and-death):


title: Abbas Kiarostami

text: In other words, wanting to accomplish more than just represent life and death as opposing forces, but rather to illustrate the way in which each element of nature is inextricably linked, Kiarostami devised a cinema that does more than just present the viewer with the documentable "facts," but neither is it simply a matter of artifice. Because ""existence"" means more than simply life, it is projective, containing an irreducibly fictive element, but in this "being more than" life, it is therefore contaminated by mortality. Nancy is giving a clue, in other words, toward the interpretation of Kiarostami's statement that lying is the only way to truth.


title: Abbas Kiarostami

text: The concepts of change and continuity, in addition to the themes of life and death, play a major role in Kiarostami's works. In the "Koker trilogy", these themes play a central role. As illustrated in the aftermath of the 1990 Manjil–Rudbar earthquake disaster, they also represent the power of human resilience to overcome and defy destruction.


title: Abbas Kiarostami

text: Unlike the Koker films, which convey an instinctual thirst for survival, "Taste of Cherry" explores the fragility of life and focuses on how precious it is.


title: Abbas Kiarostami

text: Some film critics believe that the assemblage of light versus dark scenes in Kiarostami's film grammar, such as in "Taste of Cherry" and "The Wind Will Carry Us", suggests the mutual existence of life with its endless possibilities, and death as a factual moment of anyone's life.


title: Abbas Kiarostami

text: Ahmad Karimi-Hakkak, of the University of Maryland, argues that one aspect of Kiarostami's cinematic style is that he is able to capture the essence of Persian poetry and create poetic imagery within the landscape of his films. In several of his movies such as "Where is the Friend's Home" and "The Wind Will Carry Us", classical Persian poetry is directly quoted in the film, highlighting the artistic link and intimate connection between them. This in turn reflects on the connection between the past and present, between continuity and change.


title: Abbas Kiarostami

text: The characters recite poems mainly from classical Persian poet Omar Khayyám or modern Persian poets such as Sohrab Sepehri and Forough Farrokhzad. One scene in "The Wind Will Carry Us" has a long shot of a wheat field with rippling golden crops through which the doctor, accompanied by the filmmaker, is riding his scooter in a twisting road. In response to the comment that the other world is a better place than this one, the doctor recites this poem of Khayyam:


title: Abbas Kiarostami

text: It has been argued that the creative merit of Kiarostami's adaptation of Sohrab Sepehri and Forough Farrokhzad's poems extends the domain of textual transformation. Adaptation is defined as the transformation of a prior to a new text. Sima Daad of the University of Washington contends that Kiarostami's adaptation arrives at the theoretical realm of adaptation by expanding its limit from inter-textual potential to trans-generic potential.


title: Abbas Kiarostami

text: Kiarostami's "complex" sound-images and philosophical approach have caused frequent comparisons with "mystical" filmmakers such as Andrei Tarkovsky and Robert Bresson. While acknowledging substantial cultural differences, much of Western critical writing about Kiarostami positions him as the Iranian equivalent of such directors, by virtue of a similarly austere, "spiritual" poetics and moral commitment. Some draw parallels between certain imagery in Kiarostami's films with that of Sufi concepts.


title: Abbas Kiarostami

text: While most English-language writers, such as David Sterritt and the Spanish film professor Alberto Elena, interpret Kiarostami's films as spiritual, other critics, including David Walsh and Hamish Ford, have rated the influence of spirituality in his films as lower.


title: Abbas Kiarostami

text: Kiarostami, along with Jean Cocteau, Satyajit Ray, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Derek Jarman and Alejandro Jodorowsky, was a filmmaker who expressed himself in other genres, such as poetry, set designs, painting, or photography. They expressed their interpretation of the world and their understanding of our preoccupations and identities.


title: Abbas Kiarostami

text: Kiarostami was a noted photographer and poet. A bilingual collection of more than 200 of his poems, "Walking with the Wind", was published by Harvard University Press. His photographic work includes "Untitled Photographs", a collection of over thirty photographs, mostly of snow landscapes, taken in his hometown Tehran, between 1978 and 2003. In 1999, he also published a collection of his poems. Kiarostami also produced Mozart's opera, "Così fan tutte", which premiered in Aix-en-Provence in 2003 before being performed at the English National Opera in London in 2004.


title: Abbas Kiarostami

text: Riccardo Zipoli, from the Ca' Foscari University of Venice, has studied the relations and interconnections between Kiarostami's poems and his films. The results of the analysis reveal how Kiarostami's treatment of "uncertain reality" is similar in his poems and films.


title: Abbas Kiarostami

text: Kiarostami's poetry is reminiscent of the later nature poems of the Persian painter-poet, Sohrab Sepehri. On the other hand, the succinct allusion to philosophical truths without the need for deliberation, the non-judgmental tone of the poetic voice, and the structure of the poem—absence of personal pronouns, adverbs, or over-reliance on adjectives—as well as the lines containing a "kigo" (季語, a "season word") gives much of this poetry a haikuesque characteristic.


title: Abbas Kiarostami

text: Kiarostami's three volumes of original verse, plus his selections from classical and contemporary Persian poets, including Nima, Hafez, Rumi and Saadi, were translated into English in 2015 and were published in bilingual (Persian/English) editions by Sticking Place Books in New York.


title: Abbas Kiarostami

text: In 1969, Kiarostami married Parvin Amir-Gholi. They had two sons, Ahmad (born 1971) and Bahman (1978). They divorced in 1982.


title: Abbas Kiarostami

text: Kiarostami was one of the few directors who remained in Iran after the 1979 revolution, when many of his peers fled the country. He believes that it was one of the most important decisions of his career. His permanent base in Iran and his national identity have consolidated his ability as a filmmaker:


title: Abbas Kiarostami

text: When you take a tree that is rooted in the ground and transfer it from one place to another, the tree will no longer bear fruit. And if it does, the fruit will not be as good as it was in its original place. This is a rule of nature. I think if I had left my country, I would be the same as the tree.


title: Abbas Kiarostami

text: Kiarostami frequently wore dark spectacles or sunglasses, which he required because of a sensitivity to light.


title: Abbas Kiarostami

text: In March 2016, Kiarostami was hospitalized due to intestinal bleeding and reportedly went into a coma after undergoing two operations. Sources, including a Ministry of Health and Medical Education spokesman, reported that Kiarostami was suffering from gastrointestinal cancer. On 3 April 2016, Reza Paydar, the director of Kiarostami's medical team, made a statement denying that the filmmaker had cancer. However, in late June he left Iran for treatment in a Paris hospital, where he died on 4 July 2016. The week before his death, Kiarostami had been invited to join the Academy Awards in Hollywood as part of efforts to increase the diversity of its Oscar judges. Ali Ahani, Iran's ambassador to France stated that Kiarostami's body would be transferred to Iran to be buried at Behesht-e Zahra cemetery. However, it was later announced that his body would be buried in Lavasan, a resort town about northeast of Tehran, based on his own will, after it was flown back to Tehran from Paris. His body was returned to Tehran's Imam Khomeini International Airport on 8 July 2016, while a crowd of Iranian film directors, actors, actresses and other artists were in Tehran airport to pay their respects.


title: Abbas Kiarostami

text: Mohammad Shirvani, a fellow filmmaker and close friend, quoted Kiarostami on his Facebook wall on 8 June 2016: "I do not believe I could stand and direct any more films. They [the medical team] destroyed it [his digestive system]." After this comment, a campaign was set up by Iranians on both Twitter and Facebook to investigate the possibility of medical error during Kiarostami's procedure. However, Ahmad Kiarostami, his eldest son, denied any medical error in his father's treatment after Shirvani's comment and said that his father's health was no cause for alarm. After Kiarostami's death, Head of the Iranian Medical Council Dr. Alireza Zali sent a letter to his French counterpart, Patrick Bouet, urging him to send Kiarostami's medical file to Iran for further investigation. Nine days after Kiarostami's death, on 13 July 2016, his family issued a formal complaint of medical maltreatment through Kiarostami's personal doctor. Dariush Mehrjui, another famous Iranian cinema director, also criticized the medical team that treated Kiarostami and demanded legal action.


title: Abbas Kiarostami

text: Martin Scorsese said he was "deeply shocked and saddened" by the news. Oscar-winning Iranian film-maker Asghar Farhadi – who had been due to fly to Paris to visit his friend – said he was "very sad, in total shock". Mohsen Makhmalbaf echoed the sentiment, saying Iran's cinema owes its global reputation to his fellow director, but that this visibility did not translate into greater visibility for his work in his homeland. "Kiarostami gave the Iranian cinema the international credibility that it has today," he told "The Guardian". "But his films were unfortunately not seen as much in Iran. He changed the world's cinema; he freshened it and humanized it in contrast with Hollywood's rough version." Persian mystic and poet Jalal al-Din Rumi's 22nd niece Esin Celebi also expressed her condolences over the demise of Kiarostami in a separate message. Iran's representative office at the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, UNESCO also opened a memorial book for signature to honour Kiarostami.


title: Abbas Kiarostami

text: Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said on Twitter that the director's "different and profound attitude towards life and his invitation to peace and friendship" would be a "lasting achievement." Foreign Minister Mohammad-Javad Zarif also said Kiarostami's death was a loss for international cinema. In a statement, French President François Hollande praised the director for forging "close artistic ties and deep friendships" with France.


title: Abbas Kiarostami

text: Media, such as "The New York Times", CNN, "The Guardian", "The Huffington Post", "The Independent", "Associated Press", "Euronews" and "Le Monde" also reacted to Kiarostami's death. "The New York Times" wrote: "Abbas Kiarostami, Acclaimed Iranian Filmmaker, Dies at 76" and Peter Bradshaw paid tribute to Kiarostami: "a sophisticated, self-possessed master of cinematic poetry"


title: Abbas Kiarostami

text: The crowd that had gathered for this service in Paris held a vigil by the River Seine. They then allowed the waves of the Seine to carry away photos of Kiarostami that the crowd had left floating on the river. It was a symbolic moment of saying goodbye to a film director that many Iranians have come to passionately appreciate.


title: Abbas Kiarostami

text: Artists, cultural authorities, government officials, and the Iranian people gathered to say goodbye to Kiarostami on 10 July in an emotional funeral, six days after his death in France. The ceremony was held at the Center for the Intellectual Education of Children, where he began his film-making career some 40 years before. Attendees held banners with the titles of his movies and pictures of his most famous posters, as they praised the support Kiarostami contributed to culture, and particularly to filmmaking in Iran. The ceremony was hosted by famous Iranian actor Parviz Parastooie, and included speeches by painter Aidin Aghdashlou and prize-winning film director Asghar Farhadi, who stressed his professional abilities. He was later buried in a private ceremony in the northern Tehran town of Lavasan.


title: Abbas Kiarostami

text: Since 2016, Mania Akbari, who starred in "Ten", has accused Kiarostami of plagiarism, stating that he edited private footage shot by Akbari into the film without her permission. In her 2019 short film "Letter to My Mother", Amina Maher, daughter of Akbari, who also appeared in "Ten", said that her scenes in "Ten" were filmed without her knowledge. In 2022, Akbari and Maher revealed that they had been asking distributor to halt circulation of the film, to which MK2 has yet to respond. Consequently, the British Film Institute removed "Ten" from a Kiarostami retrospective.


title: Abbas Kiarostami

text: In 2022, Akbari accused Kiarostami of raping her twice, in Tehran when she was 25 and he was about 60, and in London after "Ten" had premiered.


title: Abbas Kiarostami

text: Kiarostami has received worldwide acclaim for his work from both audiences and critics, and, in 1999, he was voted the most important Iranian film director of the 1990s by two international critics' polls. Four of his films were placed in the top six of Cinematheque Ontario's Best of the '90s poll. He has gained recognition from film theorists, critics, as well as peers such as Jean-Luc Godard, Nanni Moretti, Chris Marker, and Ray Carney. Akira Kurosawa said of Kiarostami's films: "Words cannot describe my feelings about them ... When Satyajit Ray passed on, I was very depressed. But after seeing Kiarostami's films, I thanked God for giving us just the right person to take his place."


title: Abbas Kiarostami

text: Critically acclaimed directors such as Martin Scorsese have commented that "Kiarostami represents the highest level of artistry in the cinema." The Austrian director Michael Haneke has admired the work of Abbas Kiarostami as among the best of any living director. In 2006, "The Guardian"s panel of critics ranked Kiarostami as the best contemporary non-American film director.


title: Abbas Kiarostami

text: Critics such as Jonathan Rosenbaum have argued that "there's no getting around the fact that the movies of Abbas Kiarostami divide audiences—in this country, in his native Iran, and everywhere else they're shown." Rosenbaum argues that disagreements and controversy over Kiarostami's movies have arisen from his style of film-making because what in Hollywood would count as essential narrative information is frequently missing from Kiarostami's films. Camera placement, likewise, often defies standard audience expectations: in the closing sequences of "Life and Nothing More" and "Through the Olive Trees", the audience is forced to imagine the dialogue and circumstances of important scenes. In "Homework" and "Close-Up", parts of the soundtrack are masked or silenced. Critics have argued that the subtlety of Kiarostami's cinematic expression is largely resistant to critical analysis.


title: Abbas Kiarostami

text: While Kiarostami has won significant acclaim in Europe for several of his films, the Iranian government has refused to permit the screening of his films, to which he responded "The government has decided not to show any of my films for the past 10 years... I think they don't understand my films and so prevent them being shown just in case there is a message they don't want to get out".


title: Abbas Kiarostami

text: In the wake of the September 11 attacks, Kiarostami was refused a visa to attend the New York Film Festival. The festival director, Richard Peña, who had invited him said, "It's a terrible sign of what's happening in my country today that no one seems to realize or care about the kind of negative signal this sends out to the entire Muslim world". The Finnish film director Aki Kaurismäki boycotted the festival in protest. Kiarostami had been invited by the New York Film Festival, as well as Ohio University and Harvard University.


title: Abbas Kiarostami

text: In 2005, London Film School organized a workshop as well as the festival of Kiarostami's work, titled "Abbas Kiarostami: Visions of the Artist". Ben Gibson, Director of the London Film School, said, "Very few people have the creative and intellectual clarity to invent cinema from its most basic elements, from the ground up. We are very lucky to have the chance to see a master like Kiarostami thinking on his feet." He was later made Honorary Associate.


title: Abbas Kiarostami

text: In 2007, the Museum of Modern Art and MoMA PS1 coorganized a festival of the Kiarostami's work titled "Abbas Kiarostami: Image Maker".


title: Abbas Kiarostami

text: Kiarostami and his cinematic style have been the subject of several books and three films, "Opening Day of Close-Up" (1996), directed by Nanni Moretti, "Abbas Kiarostami: The Art of Living" (2003), directed by Fergus Daly, and "" (2014), directed by Bahman Maghsoudlou.


title: Abbas Kiarostami

text: Kiarostami was a member of the advisory board of World Cinema Foundation. Founded by the director Martin Scorsese, its goal is to find and reconstruct world cinema films that have been long neglected.


title: Abbas Kiarostami

text: Kiarostami has won the admiration of audiences and critics worldwide and received at least seventy awards up to the year 2000. Here are some representatives:


title: Xiamen

text: Xiamen ( , ; ), also known as Amoy (, from Hokkien pronunciation ), is a sub-provincial city in southeastern Fujian, People's Republic of China, beside the Taiwan Strait. It is divided into six districts: Huli, Siming, Jimei, Tong'an, Haicang, and Xiang'an. All together, these cover an area of with a population of 5,163,970 as of 2020 and estimated at 5.28 million as of 31 December 2021. The urbanized area of the city has spread from its original island to include most parts of all six of its districts, and with 4 Zhangzhou districts (Xiangcheng, Longwen, Longhai and Changtai), form a built-up area of 7,284,148 inhabitants. This area also connects with Quanzhou in the north, making up a metropolis of nearly ten million people. The Kinmen Islands (Quemoy) administered by the Republic of China (Taiwan) which lie less than away separated by Xiamen Bay. As part of the Opening Up Policy under Deng Xiaoping, Xiamen became one of China's original four special economic zones opened to foreign investment and trade in the early 1980s.


title: Xiamen

text: Xiamen Island possessed a major international seaport. The port of Xiamen is a well-developed first-class trunk line port in the Asia-Pacific region. It is ranked the 8th-largest container port in China and ranks 17th in the world. It is the 4th port in China with the capacity to handle 6th-generation large container vessels. On 31 August 2010, Xiamen Port incorporated the neighboring port of Zhangzhou to form the largest port of China's Southeast. Ever since the 12th century, Xiamen was also an important origin for many migrants to Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines. The overseas Chinese used to support Xiamen's educational and cultural institutions.


title: Xiamen

text: Xiamen is one of the top 70 cities in the world by scientific research as tracked by the Nature Index. The city is home to several major universities, including Xiamen, one of China's most prestigious universities as a member of the Project 985, Huaqiao, Jimei, Xiamen University of Technology and Xiamen Medical College.


title: Xiamen

text: Xiamen had always been known as Tong'an County since antiquity until Republic of China Era of the 20th century, followed by administrative zoning restructures and naming changes.


title: Xiamen

text: Tong'an County first appeared in Han dynasty records. Xiamen Island was described as Jiahe Islet of Tong'an County during the Song dynasty (960–1279). It received its present name from the Xiamen Defense Castle erected on the island by Zhou Dexing in 1387 during the Ming dynasty to meet the needs of coastal defense. The name was formerly written using, , and then changed into or "Gate of China".


title: Xiamen

text: After the fall of the Ming dynasty, Zheng Chenggong, or Koxinga, a Ming loyalist and general, occupied Xiamen island as an anti-Qing base. In 1650, the seventh year of Emperor Shunzhi of the Qing dynasty, Zheng set a military base in Xiamen island and changed its name into , meaning "Remembering the Ming".


title: Xiamen

text: When its port prospered under the Qing, especially during the reign of Emperor Kangxi, the island's name was changed to again.


title: Xiamen

text: The island's name of 思明 was in return restored after the Xinhai Revolution that inaugurated the republic in 1912.


title: Xiamen

text: The island's name of 廈門 was restored in 1933, along with Xiamen being administratively planned as a city, the first of its kind in Fujian province. 思明 continues to be used as the name of one of its districts.


title: Xiamen

text: Xiamen is the atonal pinyin romanization of the characters' pronunciation in Mandarin. It has also been romanized as Hiamen. The older English name "Amoy" was based on the same name's pronunciation in the Zhangzhou dialect of Hokkien, "Ēe-mûi".


title: Xiamen

text: Xiamen is a sub-provincial city in southeastern Fujian whose urban core grew up from the port of Xiamen on southern Xiamen Island, now located within Siming District. It now also includes Gulangyu Island and the rugged coast of the mainland from the northeast bank of the Jiulong River in the west to the islands of Xiang'an in the east. Xiamen Island lies about one degree north of the Tropic of Cancer. It is divided between Huli District in the north and Siming District in the south. Siming also includes Gulangyu. Its mainland territory is divided among Haicang, Jimei, Tong'an, and Xiang'an districts.


title: Xiamen

text: In the 19th century, Xiamen's harbor on Yundang Bay was considered one of the world's great natural harbors. Land reclamation has since been used to fill in the mouth of this inlet, turning it into Siming District's Yundang Lake. The municipal government is located on other reclaimed land beside it.


title: Xiamen

text: The nearest point of Liehyu in the Kinmen Islands, Republic of China (Taiwan), lies only off Xiamen Island.


title: Xiamen

text: Xiamen Island is the fourth largest island in Fujian province. It became a peninsula after the completion of the seawall in 1955. Xiamen waters include Xiamen Port, Outer Harbor Area, Maluan Bay, Tongan Bay, Jiulong River's estuary area and the waterway on the east side. Outside the Xiamen Port, Big Kinmen, Little Kinmen, Dadan, Erdan and other island are arranged in a horizontal line. Inside, it has Xiamen Island, Gulangyu Island and other island barriers, making it a good natural port protected from storms.


title: Xiamen

text: Xiamen has a monsoonal humid subtropical climate (Köppen "Cwa"), characterised by long, hot and humid summers (but moderate compared to much of the rest of the province) and short, mild and dry winters. The warmest month is July, with a 24-hour average of , and the coolest month is January, averaging ; the annual mean is . Extremes since 1951 have ranged from on 29 December 1991 to on 20 July 2007. Spring, both by humidity and percentage of sunshine, is the dampest season but typhoons in late summer and early autumn can make the latter period wetter overall. Summer and autumn are marked by comparatively sunny conditions, while autumn is warm and dry. The annual rainfall is . With monthly percent possible sunshine ranging from 24% in March to 56% in July, the city receives 1,853 hours of bright sunshine annually. Frost occurs very rarely, and the last snowfall in the city took place in January 1893, when snow also fell at Guangzhou, Macau, in the inland parts of Hong Kong and in the hills of Taipei.


title: Xiamen

text: The area of Xiamen was largely bypassed by the Qin and Han conquests and colonization of Guangdong, which passed west of Fujian down the Lingqu Canal between the Xiang and Li rivers. It was first organized as Tong'an County in AD282 under the Jin, but it lost this status soon afterwards. Tong'an County was again established in 933 under the Later Tang.


title: Xiamen

text: The settlement on the southeastern shore of Xiamen Island (now part of Siming District) developed as a seaport under the Song, although legal foreign trade was restricted to nearby Quanzhou, which administered the area. In 1387, attacks by the "Japanese" or "dwarf" pirates—many of them actually disaffected Chinese—prompted the Ming to protect the harbor with the fortress that gave Xiamen its name. The Portuguese first reached Xiamen in 1541. After the fall of the Ming to the Qing in 1644, Southern Ming loyalists including Koxinga used Xiamen as a base from which to launch attacks against the invading Qing-aligned Han Bannermen from 1650 to 1660. In 1661, Koxinga drove the Dutch from Taiwan and moved his operations there. His base on Xiamen fell to a combined Qing and Dutch invasion in 1663. The East India Company traded extensively with the port, constructing a factory there in 1678. It was raised to the status of a subprefecture in 1680, but the taxes and other restrictions placed on traders compelled the British to relocate to Canton and Fuzhou the next year. Trade resumed in 1685 and continued until the imposition of the Canton System. However, despite the Canton system which restricted Western trade to the port of Guangzhou, the Spanish were still allowed to trade in Xiamen. However, the Spanish rarely used this privilege as Chinese traders would ship their goods from Xiamen to Manila and vice versa, which was more profitable for both sides.


title: Xiamen

text: By the 19th century, the city walls had a circumference of around , with an inner and outer city divided by an inner wall and a ridge of hills surmounted by a well-built fort. The inner harbor on Yundang Bay was also well fortified and these defenses were further strengthened upon the outbreak of the First Opium War. Nonetheless, Xiamen was captured in 1841 between Guangzhou and Zhoushan. Rear Adm. Parker bombarded the Qing position to little effect, but the assault by the men under Lt. Gen. Gough caused the Chinese to flee their positions without a fight. The city was abandoned during the night and fell the next day on 27 August. The Chinese had spirited out the entire treasury of sycee bullion under the nose of the British by disguising it inside hollow logs. Xiamen being too large to garrison, a small force was left to hold Gulangyu. The next year, the Treaty of Nanjing made Xiamen one of the first five ports opened to British trade, which had previously been legally restricted to Guangzhou. Subsequent treaties opened the port to other international powers.


title: Xiamen

text: As the primary international port for Fujian, particularly Zhangzhou and its hinterland, Xiamen became a center of China's tea trade, with hundreds of thousands of tons shipped yearly to Europe and the Americas. Its local dialect influenced a variety of translations of Chinese terms. Its principal exports during the period were tea, porcelain, and paper; it imported sugar, rice, cotton, and opium, as well as some manufactured goods. Xiamen was also a center of Protestant missionaries in China; the missions operated the city's two hospitals. The merchants of Xiamen were thought among the richest and most entrepreneurial and industrious in China, but the city was widely accounted the dirtiest city in China. Owing to local belief in feng shui, the streets were "as crooked as ram's horns" and averaged about in width to keep out sunlight and control public disturbances. Its population was estimated at 250,000 in the 1870s; by that point the island was largely barren and full of roughly 140 villages, with a total population around 400,000. European settlement in the port was concentrated on Gulangyu Island off Xiamen proper; it remains known for its colonial architecture.


title: Xiamen

text: By the 20th century, the local export economy had collapsed due to the success of British tea plantations in India. During the Qing and the early 20th century, many southern Fujianese emigrated to Taiwan and Southeast Asia, such as in the Philippines, Indonesia, Brunei, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Myanmar, etc., spreading Hokkien language and culture overseas. Some 350,000 overseas Chinese currently trace their ancestry to Xiamen. Some of this diaspora later returned: an estimated 220,000 Xiamen residents are returning overseas Chinese and their kin. Others continue to help fund universities and cultural institutions in Xiamen.


title: Xiamen

text: At the time of the Xinhai Revolution, the native population of the city was estimated at 300,000 and the foreign settlement at 280. After the establishment of the Republic of China, the area around Xiamen was renamed Siming County. Xiamen's trade during the period was largely conducted through Taiwan, which had been seized by Japan during the First Sino-Japanese War. The Japanese subsequently claimed Fujian as their sphere of influence during the colonial squabbling over China. Japan occupied Xiamen Island from May 1938 to September 1945 during World War II. During the Japanese occupation, the city provided some shipments of rice to the Portuguese Colony of Macau. In the late phases of the Chinese Civil War that followed, the Communists captured Xiamen and Gulangyu in October 1949 but failed to capture Kinmen. The same year, Xiamen became a provincially administered city ().


title: Xiamen

text: In 1955 and 1958, mainland China escalated Cold War political tensions by shelling nearby islands from Xiamen in what became known as the First and Second Taiwan Strait Crisis. The Nationalists responded by reinforcing Kinmen and shelling Xiamen. The Gaoji Causeway built from 1955 to 1957 notionally transformed Xiamen Island into a peninsula, and so it was termed in the heady propaganda of the time. Due to political tensions, the eastern half of Xiamen Island and much of the Fujian Coast facing the offshore islands remained undeveloped in the 1960s and 1970s. The Water Police and Post-Office were situated directly across the water from the American embassy.


title: Xiamen

text: When Deng Xiaoping initiated his Opening Up Policy, Xiamen was made one of the first four special economic zones in 1980, with special investment and trade regulations attracting foreign investment, particularly from overseas Chinese. The construction of Huli Export Processing Zone in Xiamen Special Economic Zone was officially started on 15 October 1981. In 1984, Xiamen Special Economic Zone was expanded from an area of 2.5 square kilometers of Huli to 131 square kilometers of the whole island. The city grew and prospered. In June 2010, Xiamen Special Economic Zone was expanded to the whole Xiamen city, and four districts outside Xiamen Island – including Jimei, Haicang, Tongan and Xiang'an – were included into the zone. After this expansion, the area of Xiamen Special Economic Zone reached 1,573 square kilometers, 11 times larger than before.


title: Xiamen

text: On 18 April 1988, Xiamen was promoted to sub-provincial status and began to be specially considered in China's state planning.


title: Xiamen

text: Answering the call of the Belt and Road Initiative, Xiamen has focused on dealing with international competition with a more confident attitude and to facilitate the construction of the important hub city of the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road.


title: Xiamen

text: In 2001, the governments of mainland China and Taiwan agreed to initiate the "Three Mini-Links" and restored ferry, commercial, and mail links between the mainland and offshore islands. Trade and travel between Xiamen and Kinmen was restored and later expanded to include direct air travel to Taiwan Island. In 2010, travelers between Xiamen and Kinmen made 1.31 million trips.


title: Xiamen

text: In 2006, Xiamen was ranked as China's 2nd-"most suitable city for living", as well as China's "most romantic leisure city" in 2011.


title: Xiamen

text: According to the 2020 Census, Xiamen has a population of 5,163,970 inhabitants. According to the 2010 Census, Xiamen has a population of 3,531,347 inhabitants, almost 1.8 times the population counted for the last census in 2000 (which was of 2,053,070 inhabitants). The annual average population growth was of 5.57% for the period 2000–2010. This masks the population explosion in Jimei District, however, which quadrupled since the prior census; Huli District's population more than doubled. The resident population was 1,967,800 in 2013 yearend, and with a population of 3.73 million (those residing at least half a year). The total resident population is said to be 4,255,000 in December 2014, without specifying what counts as a resident.


title: Xiamen

text: By the end of 2016, the resident population of Xiamen has reached 3.92 million, the majority being Han people. There are also some ethnic minorities such as She and Hui. Xiamen is also the famous hometown of overseas Chinese with a sizable population of overseas Chinese, returned overseas Chinese and relatives of overseas Chinese.


title: Xiamen

text: As with all of China, the official language is Mandarin. Migrants of non-Hokkien ancestry usually speak Mandarin and/or their inherent tongues.


title: Xiamen

text: The indigenous language is Hokkien, a subgroup of Southern Min, with the Tong'an dialect being the most populous and prevalent. The Xiamen dialect is mostly defined to the southwest quarter of Xiamen Island, while the Zhangzhou dialect is spoken in a section of Haicang District.


title: Xiamen

text: The English words "Amoy", "tea" (), "cumshaw" (), "pekoe" (), kowtow (), and "ketchup" () are derived from the local Hokkien.


title: Xiamen

text: The first evidence of organised religion existed in the area was dated to Sui dynasty when Buddhism was first spread to Tong'an region and spread to Xiamen Island during Tang dynasty. In the 19th century, Xiamen proper had two Dutch Reformed and two LMS churches. Xiamen Island was home to three Dutch Reformed missions at "Kang-thau", "Kio-than", and "Chhan-chhu-oa".


title: Xiamen

text: In May 2003, Gulangyu and Kaiyuan districts were merged into Siming District; Xinglin District () was merged into Jimei District; and Xiang'an District was created out of a section of Tong'an District.


title: Xiamen

text: Xiamen has a diverse and well-developed economy. It is the first to refer to the business environment indexes of the World Bank with the aim of creating world's first-rated business environment. In 2018, its business environment ranked 2nd among 22 cities across the country that was evaluated by the National Development and Reform Commission. Its measures in areas such as dealing with construction permits, getting electricity, and trading across borders take the lead in the country.


title: Xiamen

text: Its social credit system has been improved. In 2018, its overall credit index ranked 2nd among 36 provincial capitals and sub-provincial cities and above.


title: Xiamen

text: Xiamen focuses on the development of five major industries – electronic information, equipment manufacturing, tourism and culture, modern logistics, and financial services.


title: Xiamen

text: The city strives to build more than 10 industrial chains, each with an output value of 100 billion yuan ($14.71 billion), including panel displays, computer and communication equipment, semiconductors and integrated circuits, software and information services, machinery and equipment, new materials, tourism and exhibitions, cultural creativity, modern logistics, financial services, biological medicine and urban modern agriculture.


title: Xiamen

text: Xiamen's GDP has grown at an average annual rate of 15.4 percent since China's reform and opening-up four decades ago. In 2018, per capita GDP: 118,015 yuan ($17,105); per capita disposable income: 50,948 yuan; public financial budget revenue: 128.3 billion yuan; 1,626 hi-tech enterprises, accounting for 44 percent of the total number of Fujian province; 600.5 billion yuan of total foreign trade value; degree of dependence on foreign trade has reached 125 percent.


title: Xiamen

text: By the end of 2018, Xiamen brought in a total of 14,818 foreign-invested projects; contractual foreign investments: $66 billion, actual foreign investments: $37.9 billion; 62 overseas Fortune 500 companies invested in 112 projects in Xiamen.


title: Xiamen

text: The city has economic and trade relations with 162 countries and regions worldwide, and benefits from foreign investment, particularly capital from Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, Singapore, US, Japan, Switzerland, Malaysia, Philippines, Germany and UK.


title: Xiamen

text: Xiamen is also the host of the China International Fair for Investment and Trade held annually in early September to attract foreign direct investment into the Chinese mainland.


title: Xiamen

text: Xiamen also hold Straits Forum annually. The 2019 edition kicked off in the coastal city from 15 to 21 June. More than 10,000 people attended the annual forum this year.


title: Xiamen

text: Xiamen has highly developed banking services. The biggest bank is the state-owned commercial bank, Sino-foreign joint venture Xiamen International Bank, solely foreign-funded Xiamen Bank, and Xiamen Rural Commercial Bank.


title: Xiamen

text: Haicang Investment Zone () is situated to the southeast of Xiamen Island, at the tip of the Xiamen-Zhangzhou-Quanzhou Delta in South Fujian bordering Zhangzhou City to the west, Jimei District to the north, and overlooking Xiamen Island across the narrow water. The 100-square-kilometer Haicang Investment Zone is the largest national investment zone for Taiwan business people authorized by the State Council in 1989. It is situated close to Xiamen Port. The zone aims at becoming a new port area, a new industrial area and a sub-center of greater Xiamen in the 21st century. It is divided into the following four functional areas in line with its overall plan: Haicang Port Area, Xinyang Industrial Area, Southern Industrial Area and Haicang New Urban Area.


title: Xiamen

text: Xiamen Area of China (Fujian) Pilot Free Trade Zone () is located in the northwest part of Xiamen, within the area of Dongdu port. Near No 319 national road and Yingxia railway, it is connected with Gaoqi International Airport. On 15 October 1992, the State Council approved establishment of the zone with an area of 5 square kilometers; the first phase covers 0.63 square kilometers and was put into operation on 28 November 1993. It is the most modern international logistics zone in the southeast part of China.


title: Xiamen

text: Xiamen Torch Development Zone for High Technology Industries () was jointly established by the former State Scientific and Technological Commission and the Xiamen municipal government in 1990 and has gradually developed into "one zone with multi parks". A favorable investment environment and high returns has made the zone into a hot spot for foreign investment. Bourns Inc. of the United States concluded the zone the most ideal target for foreign investors in China. Some of the world's top 500 companies such as Dell, ABB Switch, ABB Low-Voltage, ABB High-Voltage, Panasonic, FDK, Xiamen Tungaloy, and Fujitsu are rapidly expanding their operations in Xiamen. The zone is oriented towards information technology, biotechnology, new energy, new materials, oceanology, advanced manufacturing, and environment technology. Most of its exports go to countries and areas such as the US, Japan, Southeast Asia, West Europe, Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan. Hi-tech exports include computers, color monitors, microscopes, power supply units, integrated circuits, stepping motors, wireless telephones, switching equipment, tungsten carbide micro-drills, and similar products.


title: Xiamen

text: Xiamen is one of China's regions with rapid development of the TFT liquid crystal display (LCD) industry. Its industrial scale ranks sixth in the country and is the only pilot city with a national optoelectronic display industrial cluster. The city also has the largest R&D and production base of touch screen modules in the world. Xiamen's panel display industry reached an output value of 131.5 billion yuan in 2018, forming a complete industrial chain layout. Industrial parks include Xiamen Tongan Xiang'an Hi-tech Industrial Base and Xiamen Torch Hi-Tech Industrial Zone (Xiang'an).


title: Xiamen

text: Xiamen has gathered integrated manufacturing enterprises in such fields as complete computers, mobile phones, mobile phone lenses, micro motors, flexible circuit boards, bluetooth and wireless access equipment, and positioning and navigation sensors, as well assupporting enterprises of basic components, accessories, external equipment and IT services. The complete machine brand has global influence. The industry reached an output value of 120.4 billion yuan ($17.68 billion) in 2018. Industrial parks include Xiamen Tongan Xiang'an Hi-tech Industrial Base and Xiamen Torch Hi-Tech Industrial Zone (Xiang'an).


title: Xiamen

text: Xiamen is home to more than 200 integrated circuit (IC) enterprises which form an industrial chain covering IC design, manufacturing, testing, equipment and materials as well as applications. Xiamen's IC industry reached an output value of 41.7 billion yuan ($6.11 billion) in 2018. Industrial parks include Xiamen Tongan Xiang'an Hi-tech Industrial Base, Xiamen Science and Technology Innovation Park, Xiamen Haicang Information Industrial Park, and Xiamen IC Strait Free Trade Zone Industrial Base.


title: Xiamen

text: The software and information services industry in Xiamen covers various fields including the platform economy, industrial application software, animation and games and cloud computing and information security. The city has won the title of "China's Characteristic City in Software". The industrial output value of Xiamen's software and information services industry in 2018 reached 149.3 billion yuan ($21.78 billion), with Xiamen Software Park accounting for 67 percent of that figure.


title: Xiamen

text: Xiamen's machinery and equipment industry covers five industrial sectors – large and medium-sized passenger cars, power transmission and distribution equipment, aviation maintenance, engineering machinery and shipbuilding, with an output value of 103.7 billion yuan ($15.13 billion) in 2018. Industrial parks include Xiamen Machinery industry concentration area, Xiamen Torch Power Transmission and Distribution Industry Base, Xiamen Haicang Ship Industrial Zone, Xiamen Aviation Industrial Zone, and Xiamen Airport Industrial Zone.


title: Xiamen

text: Xiamen's new materials industry is dominated by special metal materials and advanced polymer materials, including photoelectric information materials, new energy, energy saving and environmental protection materials, and advanced carbon nanomaterials. The industry reached an output value of 88.9 billion yuan ($12.95 billion) in 2018. Industrial parks include Xiamen Tongan Xiang'an Hi-tech Industrial Base and Xiamen Torch Hi-Tech Industrial Zone (Xiang'an).


title: Xiamen

text: Xiamen has been honored as the Top Tourist City in China, a Demonstration City of Tourism and Leisure in China and one of China's most romantic leisure cities. The holiday tourism popularity and tourist satisfaction in Xiamen has long been at the forefront in China, and its inbound tourism and foreign exchange earnings have been ranked in China's top 10. The number of people going to Taiwan via Xiamen Port ranks first in China.


title: Xiamen

text: In 2018, Xiamen held a total of 229 exhibitions, with a total exhibition area of 2.38 million square meters, up 8.6 percent year-on-year. The hotels and conference centers in the city hosted 9,262 commercial meetings with more than 50 people attending, up 12.1 percent year-on-year. The total number of participants from home and abroad to Xiamen reached 1.88 million, with a year-on-year increase of 12.1 percent. The total revenue of the exhibition industry in Xiamen reached 40.3 billion yuan ($5.86 billion). Industrial parks include Xiamen International Conference & Exhibition Center, Xiamen International Conference Center, Xiamen Fliport Conference & Exhibition Center, and Xiamen east sports exhibition area (under construction).


title: Xiamen

text: Xiamen has seen rapid development in creative design, the film industry and high-end artworks in recent years. The city was listed among the first National Culture Export Bases and is home to the world's third Red Dot Design Museum. Also, the Golden Rooster and Hundred Flowers Film Festival, one of the top events in China's film industry, is to be presented in Xiamen once every two years for the 10 years following 2019. The total revenue of Xiamen's culture and creativity industry reached 104 billion yuan ($15.13 billion) in 2018. Industrial parks include National demonstration base for the integration of culture and science and technology, National Fujian and Taiwan cultural industry experimental park, Longshan cultural and creative industrial park, Huli creative industrial park, Jimeiji film and television industrial park, Tongan cultural industrial park, and Cross-Straits architectural design cultural and creative park.


title: Xiamen

text: Xiamen has been approved as a national modern logistics innovation and development city, a national cross-border e-commerce comprehensive pilot zone, a smart logistics city and a logistics standardization pilot zone, and a demonstration city for the standardization of cold chain circulation of agricultural products. In 2018, the modern logistics industry in Xiamen achieved an output value of 118 billion yuan ($17.17 billion). And Xiamen port ranked 7th in China and 14th in the world in terms of container throughput. Xiamen has formed a freight hub integrating the southeast coastal area highways and railroads. There are five logistics industry agglomeration areas in Xiamen: Haicang and Dongdu port-surrounding areas, Qianchang, Tongan and Xiang'an.


title: Xiamen

text: In 2018, Xiamen's total revenue of financial services reached 152.9 billion yuan ($22.24 billion), and added value accumulated to 52.4 billion yuan. Industrial parks include Xiamen cross-Straits financial center and Xiamen Area of China (Fujian) Pilot Free Trade Zone.


title: Xiamen

text: Xiamen is a pilot city for the regional agglomeration of emerging industries in bio-medicine, with a total output value of 58.9 billion yuan ($8.56 billion) in 2018. A total of 241 State-level high-tech enterprises have settled in the city. Xiamen Biobay is the incubation center for local bio-medicine achievements.


title: Xiamen

text: Urban modern agriculture in Xiamen covers the planting industry, animal husbandry, agricultural and sideline products, the food processing industry, rural tourism and ecological leisure agriculture. In 2018, Xiamen's agricultural product processing developed steadily, with 44 leading agricultural industrialization enterprises generating sales revenue of 55.3 billion yuan ($8.05 billion). Industrial parks include Xiamen cross-Straits agricultural high-tech park, Xiamen Tongan National Agricultural Science and Technology Park, Xiamen Tongan light industry food industrial park, Agricultural and sideline products logistics center of southern Fujian, and Leisure agriculture areas including Xiangshan, Damaoshan and Zhubawuxian.