Abbas Kiarostami
Abbas Kiarostami
Abbas Kiarostami; 22 June 1940 – 4 July 2016) was an Iranian film director, screenwriter, photographer and film producer. An active film-maker from 1970, Kiarostami had been involved in over forty films, including shorts and documentaries. Kiarostami attained critical acclaim for directing the Koker trilogy, Close-Up, Taste of Cherry– which was awarded the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival that year – and The Wind Will Carry Us. In his later works, Certified Copyand Like Someone in Love, he...
NationalityIranian
ProfessionDirector
Date of Birth22 June 1940
A digital camera does have many advantages and I was a believer that digital video would be a big influence on film-making.
Despite the great advantages of digital video and the great ease of using the medium, still those who use it have first to understand the sensitivities of how to best use the medium.
I have somewhat lost my enthusiasm in the last years. Mainly because film students using digital video these days have not really produced anything which is more than superficial or simplistic; so I have my doubts.
Whenever people ask me what the story is for my next film, I won't tell and people feel it's because I'm being secretive or something, but it's actually because I'm ashamed to sum up a film in three sentences.
Usually when I write a script, I have in mind some real people that I'm writing about, who don't always act in the film afterward.
Usually when I take my films to festivals, I feel incredibly anxious about them. I wonder how it will be received, how the audience will react. I feel deeply responsible for them.
There is violence in real life but I would never impose violence in a film just to attract the audience.
Some movies bring out the creativity in you. Every single audience member can become creative in the face of a particular movie. If you happen to like my films, it's because my films provide a bed for you on which you can find your creativity. The Hollywood movies do not provide that for you.
Poetry always runs away from you - it's very difficult to grasp it, and every time you read it, depending on your conditions, you will have a different grasp of it. Whereas with a novel, once you have read it, you have grasped it.
I think life is so difficult to catch, it's so furtive, that a copy, a film, can in no way catch it and represent it.
I was mentioning with the digital camera, maybe this new fashion of filmmaking gives a closer look of what life may be like. But it's still nothing but a copy.
I don't like reverse-angle shots - I find them very fake and very untruthful to the viewer.
This [the earthquake] was a very big influence on me, and the issue of life and death from then on does recur in my films.
My films have been progressing towards a certain kind of minimalism, even though it was never intended. Elements which can be eliminated have been eliminated.