Iranian auteur. Abbas began making documentaries about children and education and progressed through shorts to art films that won awards around the world. Abbas's 1997 Taste of Cherry that won the best picture award at Cannes, his latest, Ten, a deceptively simple movie about an Iranian woman and her car, at the New York Film Festival, became the talk of the town film, in early October 2002. Abbas's Ten was 'shot with two digital cameras affixed to the dashboard of the car in which the entire film takes place, it records the young driver's conversations with ten passengers as she ferries them around Tehran. With its sparse format and pungent dialogue - such as the woman's heated exchange with her angry, articulate 10-year-old son, who is furious that in order to obtain a divorce, she accused his father of drug abuse.' The film portrays information about its main character, her passengers and the Iranian society at large. Abbas started his career in 1950 making advertising shorts in Tehran and in 1969 he was one of the founding members of Kanun, a youth culture institute that later on became a new wave in Iranian cinema. He has been making films somewhat visually daring and playfully provocative. Abbas was awarded: 1989 Bronze Leopard Locamo; 1997 Palme d'Or, Cannes; 2000 Golden Lion, Venice. Abbas Kiarostami was born in Tehran, son of a painter and decorator.