Late Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami's first 20 films to be restored

The first 20 films made by Abbas Kiarostami, who is best remembered for the Koker trilogy, Close-Up and The Wind Will Carry Us, have been restored in 4K by MK2 Films. [caption id=“attachment_3472634” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Abbas Kiarostami. Image from Wikimedia Commons[/caption] MK2 Films has acquired all the rights to these movies, some of which include The Traveler and Where is the Friend’s Home? Since 1999, MK2 has produced all of Abbas Kiarostami’s films, and was collaborating with him on the last film he began working on before his death. The shooting of this film was to start in September last year. On 23 May 2017, the Cannes film festival will pay tribute to this director by screening his last film 24 Frames. Abbas Kiarostami won a Palme d’Or for his film Taste of Cherry at the Cannes Film Festival in 1997. In an interview to The Guardian, his friend and fellow Iranian film director Asghar Farhadi said, “Kiarostami gave the Iranian cinema the international credibility that it has today. But his films were unfortunately not seen as much in Iran. He changed the world’s cinema; he freshened it and humanised it in contrast with Hollywood’s rough version.” Interestingly, Kiarostami began his career as a painter and then a graphic designer. His career in films began only in 1969. The Iranian director found it increasingly difficult to make films in the country of his birth, and he began shooting films abroad. He died on 4 July 2016 in Paris, where he flew to for treatment for gastrointestinal cancer, which was diagnosed in March 2016.