Abbas Kiarostami

Abbas Kiarostami built one film by having a real fraud case acted out again by the people who had lived it. In Close-Up, Hossain Sabzian, on trial for passing himself off as the director Mohsen Makhmalbaf, and the family he deceived, play themselves. The ease with which he moves between documentary and fiction goes back to what he learned at Kanun, the institute for children and young people: he joined in 1969, helped set up its cinema department and shot his first short there in 1970. Before that he had worked in advertising, made television commercials and designed film titles. Where Is the Friend's House?, Life and Nothing More and Through the Olive Trees make up the Koker trilogy, each returning to the same village. Taste of Cherry shared the Palme d'Or in 1997 with Shohei Imamura's film. His last films were made abroad, Certified Copy in Italy and Like Someone in Love in Japan.