Abbas Kiarostami

Abbas Kiarostami started directing in 1970 and spent the next forty-six years making over forty films that redefined what cinema could quietly do. He came up with the Iranian New Wave, a generation that used poetic dialogue and allegory to say what couldn't be said directly. The Koker trilogy and Close-Up in the late eighties and early nineties built his reputation for child protagonists, rural settings, and stories shot like documentaries. Taste of Cherry took the Palme d'Or at Cannes in 1997. He kept working — The Wind Will Carry Us in 1999, then Certified Copy in Italy and Like Someone in L…