page_title: Abbas Kiarostami
section_title: Early life and background
hierarchical_section_title: Abbas Kiarostami / Early life and background
caption_attribution_description: University of Tehran Faculty of Fine Arts
context_page_description: Abbas Kiarostami was an Iranian film director, screenwriter, poet, photographer, and film producer. An active film-maker 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, Close-Up, The Wind Will Carry Us, and Taste of Cherry, which was awarded the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival that year. In later works, Certified Copy and Like Someone in Love, he filmed for the first time outside Iran: in Italy and Japan, respectively. His films Where Is the Friend’s Home?, 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.
  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.
context_section_description: 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.
  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.
caption: Kiarostami majored in painting and graphic design at the University of Tehran College of Fine arts.
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