Jon Favreau, who directed the first two films, serves as an executive producer and reprises his role as Happy Hogan. Guy Pearce, Rebecca Hall, Stephanie Szostak, James Badge Dale, and Ben Kingsley round out the film's principal cast. The plot has Tony Stark trying to recover from posttraumatic stress disorder caused by the events of The Avengers, while researching the background to a terrorist organization led by the mysterious Mandarin after his head of security Happy Hogan is hospitalized following what appeared to be an attack.

After the release of Iron Man 2 in May 2010, Favreau decided not to return as director, and in February 2011 Black was hired to rewrite and direct the film. Throughout April and May 2012, the film's supporting cast was filled out, with Kingsley, Pearce, and Hall brought in to portray key roles. Filming began on May 23, 2012 in Wilmington, North Carolina. The film was shot primarily in North Carolina, with additional shooting in Florida, China and Los Angeles. The film's visual effects were handled by 17 companies, including Scanline VFX, Digital Domain, and Weta Digital.

Iron Man 3 was converted to 3D in post-production. The film premiered at the Grand Rex in Paris on April 14, 2013. It was internationally released on April 25, 2013 in IMAX and was released on May 3, 2013 in the United States. The film was both critically and commercially successful. As of June 2013, it has grossed over $1.2 billion worldwide, becoming the 16th film to gross over $1 billion. It currently ranks as the fifth-highest-grossing film of all time, ranks as sixth-highest-grossing openings for films and the highest-grossing 2013 film. It is the first Iron Man film to gross over $1 billion, the second Marvel film to do so after The Avengers. At 130 minutes, it is the longest stand-alone Iron Man film.

Fast & Furious 6 was in development by February 2010 as the first film in the series to move away from the underground car-racing theme of the series' previous films which was considered to have placed a barrier on audience numbers. Pre-production had begun by April 2011, and principal photography began in London, England in July 2012. Filming locations also included the Canary Islands, Glasgow, and Los Angeles. The film was first released in the United Kingdom, on May 17, 2013, followed by an international release on May 24, 2013. The film has grossed over $780 million worldwide, making it number 43 on the all-time worldwide list of highest-grossing films, in unadjusted dollars, and the third-highest-grossing film of 2013. A sequel began filming in September 2013.

It doesn't seem like they'll stop making Fast and Furious any time soon.  And yeah, the storyline seems like it was patched together with duct tape just to showcase whatever cars/planes/and now tank they have at their disposal.  However, the trailer does look like it'll be fun ride as long as you throw logic out the window.

Amanda Michelle Seyfried (/ˈsaɪfrɛd/  born December 3, 1985) is an American actress and model. She began her career as a child model when she was 11 and at 15 began her career as an actress, starting off with uncredited roles and moving on to recurring roles on As the World Turns andAll My Children.

In 2004, Seyfried made her film debut in Mean Girls. Her subsequent supporting roles were in independent films, such as Nine Lives (2005) and Alpha Dog (2006), and she also had a recurring role in the UPN TV show Veronica Mars (2004–2006). Between 2006 and 2011, she starred on the HBOseries Big Love. After that, Seyfried appeared in her breakthrough role in the 2008 musical feature film Mamma Mia!. Her other appearances include leading roles in Jennifer's Body (2009), Chloe (2009), Dear John (2010), Letters to Juliet (2010), Red Riding Hood (2011), In Time (2011) and Gone(2012), Cosette in the musical film Les Misérables (2012), and Linda Lovelace in the biopic Lovelace.

Early life

Amanda Seyfried was born in Allentown, Lehigh County, Pennsylvania, on December 3, 1985. Her mother, Ann (née Sander), is an occupational therapist, and her father, Jack Seyfried, is apharmacist. She is of mostly German descent, and also has some Scots-Irish and English ancestry. Seyfried graduated in 2003 from Allentown's William Allen High School. She has an older sister, Jennifer Seyfried, who is a musician in the Philadelphia organ-driven rock band, Love City.

Early work (1996–2005)

During Seyfried's time modeling, she appeared in print ads for clothing companies including Limited Too with Leighton Meester.She stopped modeling when she was seventeen. Seyfried took voice lessons, studied opera, and trained with a Broadway coach while still a teen. She began acting as an uncredited extra in the daytime drama television series Guiding Light. From 2000 to 2001 she portrayed the recurring character Lucy Montgomery on the television show As the World Turns. From 2002 to 2003 Seyfried played the recurring role of Joni Stafford on the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) broadcasted show, All My Children.

In 2003 Seyfried auditioned to play the role of Regina George in Mean Girls; the role eventually went to Rachel McAdams. While she was initially considered to play the lead role of Cady Heron, played by Lindsay Lohan, the producers of the film decided that Seyfried should play Karen Smith, Regina's dim-witted "Plastic" friend and sidekick. The film was a box-office success, earning over $129 million in its theatrical run. Seyfried's performance in the film earned her, along with Lohan, Lacey Chabert, and McAdams, an MTV Movie Award in the category of "Best On-Screen Team". Seyfried auditioned to play the title character on UPN's television series Veronica Mars. The role eventually went to Kristen Bell, and Seyfried portrayed the title character's murdered best friend, Lilly Kane. Her character was only shown in flashbacks. The show's creator, Rob Thomas, felt that Seyfried's portrayal as Lilly Kane was so outstanding that he used her more times in the show than he initially planned in the first season. Seyfried appeared in ten episodes from 2004–2005.

In 2005 Seyfried played the lead character, Samantha, a role written by director Rodrigo García specifically for her, in one of the nine parts in the film Nine Lives, composed of nine short films with different themes and an ensemble cast. For her performance in the film, Seyfried, along with the film's other female leads, won an award from the Locarno International Film Festival, for Best Actress. The same year she played supporting character, Mouse, in the independent film, American Gun. In 2006 Seyfried appeared in five episodes of Wildfire as Rebecca and had lead role as Chrissy in the short film titled Gypsies, Tramps & Thieves, by writer-director Andrea Janakas. Seyfried also contributed a minor role as Julie Beckley in Alpha Dog. From 2004 to 2006 Seyfried made multiple guest appearances on television series, including House, M.D., Justice, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, American Dad! and CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.

Breakthrough (2006–2011)

Seyfried's profile gained prominence due to her role in the highly acclaimed HBO drama television series, Big Love. The series centers on a fictional fundamentalist Mormon family, in which Seyfried plays Sarah Henrickson, Bill and Barb's first daughter, who struggles with her family's polygamous faith. Big Love premiered in the United States on March 12, 2006. In December 2009, HBO confirmed that Seyfried would return for the show's fourth season, but that it would be her last, as Seyfried wished to concentrate on her film career and upcoming projects.

Following Big Love Seyfried had a supporting role, as Zoe, in the 2008 horror drama film, Solstice, and she co-starred alongside Meryl Streep in Mamma Mia!, a romantic comedy film adaptationof the 1999 musical of the same name. Mamma Mia! was Seyfried's first leading role. The film was the fifth highest grossing film of 2008, and as of January 2013 is the 73rd highest grossing film of all time. Her musical performance in Mamma Mia! was released on the film's soundtrack, for which she recorded five songs.As part of promotion for both the film and its soundtrack, Seyfried recorded a music video of the song, entitled "Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight)".

 

In March 2008 Seyfried was cast in the comedy horror film, Jennifer's Body. In the film Seyfried was cast as Anita "Needy" Lesnicki, the title character's best friend. The film, which premiered at the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival and was released to theaters on September 18, 2009, received mixed reviews from critics. The same year she was cast in the comedy-drama independent film Boogie Woogie. She played Paige Oppenheimer, one of the lead roles in the ensemble movie. The movie was originally shown on June 26, 2009, at Edinburgh International Film Festival, and was officially shown in US theaters April 25, 2010.On February 22, 2009, Seyfried presented an award and performed at the 2009 Annual 81st Academy Awards ceremony. In early March 2009 director Zack Snyder had tapped Seyfried to portray the lead role, Baby Doll, in Sucker Punch,but Seyfried had to drop out of the film due to scheduling conflicts with Big Love.

Seyfried starred alongside Channing Tatum in Dear John, the film adaptation of the novel of the same name, that was written by Nicholas Sparks.The film was released on February 5, 2010, and received generally negative reviews, Seyfried wrote and recorded "Little House", a song which appears on one of the official soundtracks of Dear John. Despite the reviews, Dear John became the first film to break up Avatar's box office reign at number one at the United States box office and grossed $80 million in the US theatrically and $115 million worldwide.

Seyfried appeared as the title character in the erotic thriller Chloe, theatrically released by Sony Pictures Classics on March 26, 2010. Chloeoriginally premiered at the Toronto Film Festival in September 2009. In the film, Seyfried's character is an escort/prostitute who is hired to test a husband, because his wife feels that she cannot trust his fidelity. Chloe had enjoyed commercial success and became director Atom Egoyan's biggest moneymaker ever. Seyfried's performance in the film also received favorable reviews from critics; it also helped her to gain more industry acclaim and receive more opportunities to play more interesting roles.

Later in 2010 Seyfried starred in the romantic-comedy film Letters to Juliet, based on the book by Lise and Ceil Friedman, which was released to mixed reviews and was a box office success, generated $80 million worldwide. In 2010 she was named, and received an award as, the "Showest Breakthrough Female Star of The Year".She also won the "Scared-As-S**T" category for her performance in Jennifer's Body and was nominated for Best Female Performance for her movie Dear John, at the 2010 MTV Movie Awards. Also in 2010, she was included in Forbes's "The 17 Stars To Watch" list, received 3 nominations in the Teen Choice Awards for Choice Movie Actress Drama and Choice Movie Chemistry with her co-star Channing Tatum for their film Dear John. Seyfried was also nominated for Choice Movie Actress Romantic Comedy for Letters to Juliet.

In late January 2009 she became attached to appear in Myriad Pictures' adaptation of Oscar Wilde's comedy A Woman of No Importance. The film was set to be released in 2011.In 2010, however, reports indicated that the film might not happen due to lack of financing. Although it was confirmed in 2009 that she would appear in the movie, Albert Nobbs, she ultimately dropped out due to scheduling conflicts and was replaced by Mia Wasikowska. Seyfried played the starring role of Valerie in Catherine Hardwicke's Red Riding Hood; it was released on March 11, 2011, to mostly negative reviews, but was a moderate box office success, earning $90 million worldwide on a $42 million budget. She also played the lead role of Sylvia Weis in Andrew Niccol's In Time, released in October 2011 to mixed reviews but with excellent box office receipts, grossing more than $172 million worldwide.

Recent roles (2012–present)

Seyfried starred in the thriller Gone, released in early 2012. She played Cosette in the film adaptation of the musical, Les Misérables.

In 2013, Seyfried appeared in the comedy The Big Wedding, and had a voice role in the animated movie Epic. She will star in the drama The End of Love, play Linda Lovelace in the biopicLovelace (directed by Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman), appear in a dramedy titled Pete and Goat, and play the title role in The Girl Who Conned the Ivy League. She is also signed to play the role of Ann Burden in the dramatization of the Robert O'Brien post-apocalyptic novel Z for Zachariah.

 She has a sister and two step brothers. Sridevi married Boney Kapoor, a film producer and the elder brother of actors Anil Kapoor and Sanjay Kapoor, in 1996. They have two daughters, Jhanvi and Khushi.

She has worked in Tamil, Telugu, Hindi,Malayalam and a few Kannada films. Often noted for her splendid acting and mesmerising dances, Sridevi appeared in range of movies from comedy, drama, action to thriller, superhero and romance. She is cited as the First Female Superstar of Hindi Cinema,one of the most beautiful and graceful actress of all time. Sridevi is widely regarded as one of the most iconic actresses  one of the longest reigning leading ladies and one of the greatest and most influential actresses of Bollywood.The emergence of sridevi as The First Female Superstar of Bollywood has been chosen as the leading defining moment in 100 years of Indian cinema and NDTV described her as a National Treasure.

She started her career as a child artist in M.A. Thirumugham’s devotional Thunaivan at the age of four, and continued to act as a child artist in Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and Kannada films. She made her Bollywood debut as a child artist in the hit Julie (1975) and played her first adult role at age 13 in Moondru Mudichu (1976). Sridevi quickly established herself as the leading actress in the South Indian industry with roles such as 16 Vayathinile (1977), Sigappu Rojakkal (1978), Varumayin Niram Sivappu (1980), Meendum Kokila (1981) and Moondram Pirai (1982). However her national success came in Bollywood. Making her debut as a leading lady with Solva Sawan (1978), she gained wide public attention with blockbuster movie Himmatwala (1983). She appeared in a string of commercially successful movies like Mawaali (1983), Tohfa (1984), Masterji (1985), Karma(1986), Mr. India (1987), Waqt Ki Awaz (1988), Chandni (1989). She also received critical acclaim for commercially successful movies like Sadma(1983), Nagina (1986), ChaalBaaz (1989), Lamhe (1991), Khuda Gawah (1992), Gumrah (1993), Laadla (1994), Judaai (1997)

In 2012, Sridevi returned to films after a 15 year long hiatus with English Vinglish and became the only actress in the history of Hindi Cinema to make a highly successful comeback.In 2013 Government of India awarded her Padma Shri, the fourth highest civilian honor. She was also voted 'India's Greatest Actress in 100 Years' in a CNN-IBN national poll conducted in 2013 on the occasion of the Centenary of Indian Cinema. In her career, Sridevi has won three Filmfare Awards including a Filmfare Special Award .

 Early Years as Child Artist (1967–1975)

Sridevi started her career as a child actor at the age of four in Tamil movie Thunaivan playing the role of young Muruga and acted in many Tamil and Telugu movies from then on. Baby Sridevi’s performance in Poombatta (1971) in Malayalam won her the Kerala State Film Award for Best Child Artist. Kandan Karunai (1967); Nam Naadu (1969); Prarthanai (1970) Babu (1971); Vasantha Maaligai (1972) are the most notable films of her career as a child artiste. In 1975, Sridevi debuted in Bollywood with Julie, where she played younger sister to the protagonist Lakshmi.

Rise to Stardom in South Indian Industry (1976-1982)

In 1976, Sridevi starred in her first leading role in the Tamil film Moondru Mudichu directed by K. Balachander. She followed it with a number of films withKamal Haasan and Rajnikanth.

Sridevi's first release of 1977 was Gayathri followed by Kavikkuyil and 16 Vayathinile where she played the role of a young girl who is caught between her two lovers. She also starred in the movie's Telugu remake Padaharella Vayasu in 1978. Her subsequent notable films included Bharathi Raja'sSigappu Rojakkal, SP. Muthuraman's Priya, Karthika Deepam, Johnny, Varumayin Niram Sivappu and Aakali Rajyam.

In 1981, she starred in the Tamil film Meendum Kokila which won her the Filmfare Award for Best Actress – Tamil.^{[citation needed]} In 1982, Sridevi starred in Moondram Pirai playing a woman suffering from 

amnesia and went on to win the Tamil Nadu State Film Award for Best Actress.

Sridevi's notable Telugu films include Konda Veeti Simham, Kshana Kshanam, Vetagadu, Sardar Paparayudu and Bobbili Puli. With A. Nageswara Rao, she appeared in movies such as Mudulla Koduku, Premabhishekham, Bangaru Kanuka and Premakanuka as well as Kanchu Kagada, Kalavari Samsaram, Krishnavatharam, Burripalem Bolludu, Khaidi Rudrayya, Jagadeka Veerudu Atiloka Sundari, S. P. Parasuram and Govinda Govinda.

Her performance in the 1992 Ram Gopal Varma directed Kshana Kshanam won her the Filmfare Award for Best Actress – Telugu and Andhra's Nandi Award for Best Actress.

Superstardom in Hindi Cinema (1983-1997)

Sridevi made her debut in Hindi films with Solva Sawan in 1979. Four years later she was signed to star opposite Jeetendra in Himmatwala. The film released in 1983 and became one of the biggest blockbusters of the year.It established Sridevi in Bollywood and earned her the famous sobriquet 'Thunder Thighs'. Her dance number 'Nainon Mein Sapna' became a rage with Rediff stating that "the water pots may have dominated most frames in Nainon mein sapna but it was Sridevi's bejewelled outfits and headgears that stole the show". The following year Tohfa released and turned out to be the biggest hit of 1984. The film established Sridevi as the topmost actress of Bollywood with Filmfare magazine declaring her "Unquestionably No.1" on their cover. Sridevi went on to star in several films like Mawaali, Maqsad and Justice Chaudhry forming a popular onscreen pair withJeetendra.

Sadma released in 1983 brought Sridevi critical acclaim. A remake of her Tamil film Moondram Pirai, Sadma is included in iDiva's list of '10 Must Watch Movies That Weren't Blockbusters'. Sridevi's performance as a child-woman suffering from amnesia was called by Indian Express "a milestone in her illustrious career". Sridevi also featured in the Mid Day list of 'Challenging Roles played by Bollywood Actors' describing her act in the film as "her best performance ever". In 2012, Adil Hussain, Sridevi's co-star in English Vinglish revealed that he became a fan of the actress after watching her in Sadma. The Sridevi-Kamal Hasan pair also appeared on the CNN-IBN 2012 list of 'Greatest Romantic Couples on Celluloid'. The film won Sridevi her first Filmfare nomination for Best Actress.

In 1986, came the snake fantasy Nagina which saw Sridevi play an 'ichhadhaari naagin' or a shape-shifting woman. The film turned out to be the second biggest blockbuster of the year with Box Office India stating that Sridevi remained "the undisputed No.1". Named one of the best snake fantasy films by Yahoo, Times of India ranked Nagina as one of the 'Top 10 Snake Films of Hindi Cinema'.Sridevi's climax dance number 'Main Teri Dushman' also remains one of the best snake dances in Bollywood with Desi Hits calling it "one of Sridevi's most iconic dance numbers...that still gives fans goose bumps" and iDiva describing it as "the stuff of movie legends".Besides Nagina, 1986 also saw Sridevi giving box-office hits in Subhash Ghai's multi-starrer Karma and Feroze Khan's Janbaaz. According toCNN-IBN Bollywood Blockbusters, "Sridevi's popularity grew so much that despite having a guest appearance in Janbaaz, she completely overshadowed the film's lead heroine Dimple Kapadia".

Sridevi followed the success of Nagina by playing a goofy crime journalist in the 1987 film Mr. India described by Rediff as "one of the most iconic films of its time". Directed by Shekhar Kapur, it became one of the highest grossing hits of the year and also found a place in Hindustan Times list of 'Top 10 Patriotic Films of Hindi Cinema'. While the trade famously joked that the film should have been named Miss. India, Rediff also stated that "Sri was a complete show-stealer in the film". Sridevi's iconic imitation of Charlie Chaplin in the film was described by Times of India as "the most hilarious act she has ever done". Rediff also featured Sridevi in its list of 'Super Six Comic Heroines' stating that "her mobile face expressions could give Jim Carrey sleepless nights" and that "her biggest plus point is her ability to be completely inhibited in front of the camera". The famous 'Hawa Hawai' dance, cited by Times of India as "one of the unforgettable numbers of Sridevi", also became a popular nickname for the actress. Besides comedy, Sridevi gave Hindi Cinema one of its sexiest rain songs in the film's chart-buster 'Kaate nahin kat te' where Filmfare described Sridevi as "truly a goddess in a blue sari". Times of India included the number in its 'Top 10 Hot'n'Sexy Songs' countdown for featuring a "stunning Sridevi sizzling in a wet blue saree" and being "a trendsetter for erotic numbers to follow in Bollywood" while iDiva described the song as "unparalleled in Hindi Cinema". Rediff also featured the song in its list of 'Top 25 Sari Moments' praising Sridevi's "ability to look erotic even when she's covered from head to toe". Kaate Nahi Kat Te song was choosen by NDTV as the most famous rain song in Bollywood  Box Office India states that with the success of Mr. India, Sridevi "continued her domination" over her contemporaries Jaya Prada and Meenakshi Sheshadri.In 1989 came Chaalbaaz which had Sridevi in a double-role playing twin sisters separated at birth. Filmfare ranked her performance 4th in its list of '80 Iconic Performances of Hindi Cinema' stating that "Sridevi´s penchant for giggles and her ability to look distinctly tearful when required polishes these performances to perfection. Hell, she made Sunny Deol and Rajnikant look like sidekicks in the film". while the Times of India article 'Bollywood's Hit Double Roles' gushed "Sridevi's performance rocked the box office". Rediff featured the film in its countdown of '25 Best Double Roles in Bollywood' saying "What you don't realise until you have seen Chaalbaaz is just how incredible Sridevi is at depicting both ends of the spectrum" and that the film "cemented her position as an actress with a killer comic timing".Speaking to Indian Express about Sridevi's act in Chaalbaaz, the director Pankaj Parashar said "She proved her range with the movie and after that she got lots of offers which saw her in a double role".Her slapstick rain dance 'Na jaane kahan se aayi hai' became a big hit with Times of India describing it as a "Sridevi classic where she simply looked wow with her chirpy expressions and rain drops kissing her cheeks". This twin-sister act won Sridevi her first Filmfare Award for Best Actress in Hindi films while the song bagged the Filmfare Award for Best Choreography.

The same year also saw the release of the Yash Chopra romantic saga Chandni with Sridevi playing the title role. According to iDiva, the film was "more an event and less a movie".Chandniemerged as one of the biggest blockbusters of 1989 with The Hindu stating that "the film opened to full houses and distributors had to drastically increase the number of theatres". Cited byTimes of India as "one of the most watched films of Indian Cinema", the film also reaffirmed Sridevi’s position as the top female star of the 1980s.Describing Sridevi's performance inChandni, Indiatimes wrote "True to her screen-name, she was an epitome of radiance, warmth and vivacity. She effortlessly introduced us to the powerful streaks, her classic, angelic character was laden with". While Sridevi topped the Hindustan Times list of Yash Chopra's 'Top 5 Heroines', CNN-IBN also ranked her no.1 on its list of 'Yash Chopra's 10 Most Sensuous Heroines' saying "Yash Chopra immortalised Sridevi as the perfect Chandni". The title role became one of the most famous characters of Hindi Cinema with India Today including it in its list of 'Yash Chopra's Iconic Characters' while NDTV featured it in its list of 'Yash Chopra's Greatest Creations' stating that the film established Sridevi "as the nation's sweetheart". Sridevi's iconic 'Chandni Look' revolutionized fashion in North India with Rediff stating "A luminous Sridevi slips into every possible design in white for a major chunk of the romance and no one complains".The Tribune wrote "Leena Daru scored a winner again when she created the 'Chandni Look' for Sridevi. Every street corner sold the salwar-kameez and dupatta that gave the heroine a refreshingly understated look, rarely seen on the Indian screen". while Mid Day reported that the "simple white churidar and kurta with the leheriya dupatta gave Sridevi an angelic image and caused Chandni Chowk stores to hit the jackpot with thousands of copies".BizAsia also described the effect of the look saying "Chopra never quite got over his Sridevi hangover and chose to present his lead heroines in similar outfits (Juhi Chawla in ‘Darr’ (1993), Madhuri Dixit in ‘Dil To Pagal Hai’ (1997)), but none of them became half as iconic as Sridevi".^[ The 'Chandni Look' was also highlighted in the film's famous Tandav dance sequence by Sridevi where Rediff said "the actress transformed into a mythical goddess in a white number". Sridevi's chiffons became equally popular with Indian Express writing "This movie made the chiffon sari a must-have in every Indian woman's wardrobe". The music of Chandni became a Platinum Success with Sridevi's famous dance number 'Mere Hathon Mein Nau Nau Choodiyan' finding a place in the Rediff chart of 'Bollywood's Top 25 Wedding Songs.' The actress also lent her voice to the film's popular title-track 'Chandni O Meri Chandni'. which featured among the 'Top 5 Songs' of Yash Chopra by Hindustan Times. Chandni won the National Film Award for Best Popular Film Providing Wholesome Entertainment while Sridevi garnered Filmfare Best Actress nominations for both Chandni and Chaalbaaz in 1989 winning for the latter.

Yash Chopra again cast Sridevi in his 1991 film Lamhe. Times of India included it in its list of 'Top 10 Films of Yash Chopra' describing it as a tale of "love transcending the boundaries of time and space" while Rediff called it "Quite easily one of his most definitive films, Chopra surpassed his own findings of romance with the insightful, lovely Lamhe". Sridevi played both mother and daughter cast in what iDiva described as "another double role but it was unlike any played before". Hailed by Rediff as "one of the most remarkable films of her career...often considered a film way ahead of its time", Her performance brought her much acclaim with BizAsia stating that "Her rendition of both Pallavi and Pooja serves well in highlighting how versatile she is as an actress, playing contrasting characters in the same movie". Speaking to Karan Johar about the 'Making of Lamhe', Yash Chopra revealed "When 90% of the London schedule was over, tragedy happened. Sridevi's father died...She came back after 16 days and had to shoot a comedy scene...At that moment she forgot everything and gave a wonderful scene. I understood that is the secret of her success...Why she is what she is". Sridevi's folk dance number 'Morni Baga ma' also became a rage and was placed among the 'Top 5 Songs' of Yash Chopra by Hindustan Times. Lamhe failed commercially but received high critical praise and has over the years become a cult classic. Talking about the film, critic Rachel Dwyer wrote in her biography of the film-maker "Yash Chopra's own favourite film, Lamhe ('Moments', 1991), divided the audience on a class basis: it was hugely popular with metropolitan elites and the overseas market, which allowed it to break even, but it had a poor box-office response (largely lower class, especially the repeat audience) because of its supposed incest theme". The Hindu reported that "With shades of incest, Lamhe caused more than a flutter and remained the talk of the town" while Sridevi herself admitted in an interview with Rajeev Masand that she found the subject "too bold". Though the film flopped with Rediff describing its failure as "one of those bizarre, unexplained moments of cinema", Lamhe picked up five Filmfare trophies including Filmfare Award for Best Film and Sridevi's second Filmfare Award for Best Actress. Her popular Rajasthani costumes in the film also won designer Neeta Lulla her first National Film Award for Best Costume Design.

In 1992, Sridevi starred in the epic Khuda Gawah opposite Amitabh Bachchan. The actress played a double role again as an Afghani warrior Benazir and her daughter Mehendi. Shot extensively inAfghanistan, the film did good business with BBC reporting that "it ran to packed houses for 10 weeks in Kabul".Khuda Gawah still remains popular in the Afghan country and Rediff reported that the film is "in great demand after the opening of cinema halls in the country". The film picked up the Filmfare Award for Best Director while Sridevi earned a Filmfare nomination for Best Actress.

The actress's big budget 1993 release Roop Ki Rani Choron Ka Raja was one of India's most expensive films ever made. Sridevi was appreciated withTimes of India calling her disguise in a comedy scene "the best ever South Indian role played by any actress". Sridevi continued to get central roles with big banners like the Dharma Productions venture Gumrah opposite Sanjay Dutt. Directed by Mahesh Bhatt, the actress played a singer falsely accused of drugs smuggling in Hong Kong. Bollyspice stated in its 'Sridevi Retrospective' that "Despite very good performances from the rest of the cast, Gumrah was really Sridevi’s film. She managed to exemplify female emotion and robustness to a great degree that you remember the film largely for her significant contribution towards it". Her performance received another nomination for Filmfare Best Actress Award. In 1994, Sridevi teamed up with Anil Kapoor again in Laadla playing business tycoon Sheetal Jaitley. The character, described by Times of India as "rude, dominant and very competitive"brought her yet another Filmfare nomination.de. Though the film failed at the box-office, Sridevi was appreciated withTimes of India calling her disguise in a comedy scene "the best ever South Indian role played by any actress". Sridevi continued to get central roles with big banners like the Dharma Productions.

The last major film Sridevi starred in before she took a break from the industry was Judaai released in 1997. Along with Anil Kapoor and Urmila Matondkar, the actress played a greedy housewife going to extreme lengths for money. Talking about her swan song, critic Subhash K. Jha wrote that Sridevi "left us with the most stunning hurrah in Judaai. A terrible film that I've watched countless times to see her play the money-minded harridan who 'sells' her husband to Urmila Matondkar. Who but Sridevi could carry of such an outrageous role with such enthusiastic élan?!"while Bollyspice stated that "She used her polished acting skills to illustrate her character’s greed and individualism at such a grotesque level." Judaai won Sridevi her eighth Filmfare nomination for Best Actress.

Hiatus from Films , Post-Marriage and Television Debut (1998-2011)

After a six-year hiatus, Sridevi briefly returned to the small screen in the Sahara sitcom Malini Iyer (2004–2005). She also appeared on Jeena Isi Ka Naam Hai (2004) and as a judge in the TV show Kaboom (2005). She performed a medley of some of her musical numbers at the 52nd Filmfare Awards2007. She is also a member of the Board of Directors at the Asian Academy of Film & Television.

On 19 September 2009, Sridevi appeared on the Sony TV show 10 Ka Dum hosted by Salman Khan. On the episode, she and her husband, Boney Kapoor, were guests, along with actor-director Prabhu Deva, actress Ayesha Takia and the musical duo Sajid-Wajid, all of whom had come to promote their film Wanted.

Sridevi has also appeared on ramps in Lakme Fashion Weeks 2008 and 2010 and the HDIL Couture Week 2009 as Showstopper for designers like Neeta Lulla, Queenie Dhody and Priya-Chintan.

Sridevi also developed passion for painting. In March 2010, her paintings were sold by an international art auction house with the money raised being donated.

In 2011, Kareena Kapoor paid a tribute to Sridevi by performing to a selection of Sridevi's numbers at the Global Indian Film and Television Awards. Kapoor called Sridevi her hero and the reason why most girls of her generation became actresses.

In May 2012, Sridevi appeared in Aamir Khan's TV show Satyamev Jayte as a surprise to an interviewee who had been sexually abused as a child. She also signed a letter to the government in support of passing a law criminalizing sexual abuse of children initiated by Aamir Khan.

Comeback with English Vinglish (2012)

Sridevi announced her comeback in early 2011, while working in a new film English Vinglish. directed by Gauri Shinde (R. Balki's wife). Her return was officially announced at the IIFA Awards 2011 held in Toronto with a montage of Bollywood stars welcoming her back. After the Toronto premiere,some international media outlets hailed Sridevi as the "Meryl Streep of India."^[89][90][91] Two weeks later America's entertainment weekly Variety wrote in its review of English Vinglish that it found Sridevi "Disarmingly charming in a manner that recalls Audrey Hepburn."

On release, the film and Sridevi's performance received positive response. The Times of India gave it 4/5 calling it "Easily one of the best films of 2012...Sri's performance is a masterclass for actors...Request you to make a little place next to you, Rajkumar Hirani; Gauri Shinde has taken a bow in mainstream Bollywood." Another 4/5 came from Raja Sen of Rediff who found the film is "a winner all the way...Sri excels in fleshing out her character."Critic Subhash K Jha gave a 4.5 saying Sridevi "makes the contemporary actresses, even the coolest ones, look like jokes...If you watch only two films every year make sure you see "English Vinglish" twice!"

Rajeev Masand of CNN-IBN gave it 3.5 stars saying Sridevi delivers "a performance that is nothing short of perfect...It's warm and fuzzy, and leaves you with a big smile on your face." Anupama Chopra also gave it 3.5 calling it "that rare thing...Sridevi doesn't miss a beat. Her performance is a triumph." Firstpost's Rubina Khan gave the film a full 5/5 saying "Sridevi brings acting back in English Vinglish." Komal Nahta said it was 'beyond stars' applauded Sridevi saying she "makes the best comeback in Bollywood history and delivers a landmark performance." Social movie rating site MOZVO gave it 4.1 out of 5 putting it in 'Must Watch' category. Amer Shoib of The Cinema Journal gave it 4/5 and called the film "a hilarious, touching, sensitive, and sweet film that marks the triumphant come back of India's biggest female star...Sridevi."

With the worldwide triumph of English Vinglish, Sridevi, most probably, became the only actress in Bollywood to make a successful comeback as a leading lady after marriage and a long hiatus. Box Office Capsule hailed the film and Sridevi's return as "Golden Comeback of the Queen."Director Gauri Shinde featured in the Financial Times 2012 list of '25 Indians To Watch'.Film critic Raja Sen from Rediff explained why she is ranked as No. 1 "This is a simple film where things are credible, never melodramatic, and Sridevi – in a range of well-picked cotton sarees – always judges the tone right. It's the sort of performance younger actresses, including the ones on this list, should learn from."

Sridevi emerged as the most-admired Bollywood actress of 2012 in a mobile survey conducted by Vuclip, world's largest mobile research company. Furthermore, she was nominated for Best Actress in most of the award ceremonies, including the Filmfare awards, where she received her ninth nomination for Best Actress.

With the simultaneous release of her second studio album J.Lo and her film The Wedding Planner in 2001, Lopez became the first person to have a number one album and film in the same week. Her 2002 remix album, J to tha L–O! The Remixes, was the first in history to debut at number one on the US Billboard 200, while her fifth studio album, Como Ama una Mujer (2007), received the highest first-week sales for a Spanish album in the United States. Lopez has established herself as a prominent figure in both the film and music industry, in a career spanning four decades. With records sales of 75 million and a cumulative film gross of over $2 billion, Lopez is regarded as the most influential Hispanic performer in the United States, as well as the highest-paid Latin actress. Her rags to riches story is considered a rarity, having innovated Latin influence in the entertainment community which it lacked for decades.

Lopez's public image and personal relationships have attracted worldwide media attention. Lopez's first high profile relationship was with media mogulSean Combs, who accompanied her to the 2000 Grammy Awards where she wore the infamous Green Versace dress. She became romantically involved with actor Ben Affleck, who would later become the muse of her third studio album This Is Me... Then (2002), while still married to her second husband Cris Judd. Lopez wed long-time friend Marc Anthony in 2004 and gave birth to their twins, Emme and Maximilian, in February 2008. The entertainer has used her position as a global icon of pop culture to begin her own empire, consisting of various clothing lines, accessories, fragrances,a production company, television shows and a charitable foundation among other activities. As of 2012, Lopez has an estimated net worth of $250 million.

Early Life

Jennifer Lynn Lopez was born on July 24, 1969, in the Castle Hill neighborhood of The Bronx, New York. The middle child of Puerto Rican parents Guadalupe Rodriguez and David Lopez, she has an elder sister, Leslie, and a younger sister, Lynda. David worked the night shift at the Guardian Insurance Company, before becoming a computer technician at the firm, while Guadalupe was a homemaker. When Lopez was born, the family was living in a small apartment. A few years later, her parents had saved up enough money to be able to purchase a two-story house, which was considered a big deal for the relatively poor family. At the age of five, Lopez began taking singing and dancing lessons. She toured New York with her school when she was seven years old. Her parents stressed the importance of work ethic and being able to speak English. They encouraged their three daughters to put on performances at home; singing and dancing in front of each other and their friends so that they would stay "out of trouble". Lopez spent her entire academic career in Catholic schools, finishing atPreston High School. In school, Lopez did gymnastics, ran track on a national level and was a member of the school's softball team. She excelled athletically rather than academically, competing in national track championships. In 1984, at the age of fifteen, she began dating David Cruz, her first boyfriend.

While attending her final year of high school, Lopez learned about a film casting that was seeking several teenage girls for small roles. She auditioned and was cast in My Little Girl (1986), a low-budget film co-written and directed by Connie Kaiserman. Lopez acted as Myra, a young woman at a center for troubled girls. After she finished filming her role in the film, Lopez realized that she wanted to become a "famous movie star". To please her parents, though, she enrolled in Baruch College, only to drop out after one semester. She told her parents her dream of becoming a movie star, but they ensisted that it was a "really stupid" idea and that "no Latinos did that". The differences in opinions led Lopez to move out of their family home and into an apartment in Manhattan. During this period, Lopez performed in regional productions of the musicals: Jesus Christ, Superstar! and Oklahoma. From there, she was hired for the chorus in a Golden Musicals of Broadway, which toured Europe for five months. She was unhappy with the role, as she was the only member of the chorus to not have a solo. She later got a job on the show Synchronicity in Japan, where she acted as a dancer, singer and a choreographer.

Personal life

While working on her first album On the 6, Lopez began dating record producer and rapper Sean Combs. On December 27, 1999, the couple were arrested along with two others in connection to a shooting outside the Times Square Club in New York. They were charged with criminal possession of a weapon as well as stolen property. Lopez was soon exonerated, having had nothing to do with the crime. However, Combs was charged and given an indictment by a Manhattan grand jury. After leaving Combs, Lopez developed a relationship with former back-up dancer Cris Judd, whom she was married to from September 2001 to June 2002. Following her second divorce, she commenced a high-profile relationship with actor and director Ben Affleck, whom she became engaged to in November 2002. The media began to refer to them as "Bennifer" and they became a prominent supercouple in the media and popular culture. Bennifer became a popular term, which was eventually entered into urban dictionaries and neologism dictionaries as notable, as the name blend started the trend of other celebrity couples being referred to by the combination of each other's first names. The couple postponed their nuptials indefinitely a day prior to the planned ceremony in September 2003, citing the media's interference with the event as the reason.

Following her break-up with Affleck in January 2004, Lopez began dating long-time friend Marc Anthony. The couple wed that June. Two men attempted to ransom a private wedding video which was stolen from the couple for one million dollars; however they were arraigned in Manhattan Criminal Court on charges of conspiracy, attempted grand larceny and possession of stolen property. On November 7, 2007, during the final night of their co-headlining tour, Lopez and Anthony officially confirmed that they were expecting their first child together. The announcement ended months of speculation over the pregnancy.Her father confirmed that the couple were expecting twins, revealing that it runs in the family: "My sister also had twins, so it's a hereditary thing".

Lopez gave birth to a son, Maximilian David, and a daughter, Emme Maribel, in Long Island, New York on February 22, 2008. The twins were introduced in the March 11, 2008 issue ofPeople, for which the magazine paid a reported $6 million—the photographs of the twins became the most expensive celebrity picture ever taken at the time. Three years later in July 2011, the couple announced their split, with Anthony filing for divorce in April 2012. Since October 2011, Lopez has been in a relationship with her former back-up dancer Casper Smart. Lopez has stated, "I am a nontraditional family. Me being a single mom, their dad doesn't live at home with them. They have three stepbrothers from two other mothers...that’s not traditional".

Musical style

Lopez has explored various musical genres over the course of her career; this includes Latin pop, dance, R&B, hip hop, rock, funk, house and salsa among others. Often in collaboration with songwriter Cory Rooney—according to Ed Morales in The Latin Beat: The Rhythms And Roots Of Latin Music From Bossa Nova To Salsa And Beyond (2003)—Lopez's music is often experimental of her Nuyorican point of view: she explores the romantic innocence of Latin music while feeling a stronger identification towards hip hop due to her partial African ancestry and the historic African American socialization between the two worlds. Lopez was exposed to traditional Latin pop music styles ranging from salsa to bachata as a child, though it was hip hop music such as the 1979 song "Rapper's Delight" by hip hop trio The Sugarhill Gang that "changed" her life. As she forayed into the music industry, she infused the Latin music she grew up with together with the hip hop sound she loved, which she dubbed Latin soul. Her first two albums included funk, dance and urban music as well as sensual ballads and Spanish-language songs. At the height of her success in the urban market, she released a downtempo ballad entitled "Alive" which marked a significant departure from her previous material.

The release of ‘This Is Me... Then’ saw Lopez invest in adult contemporary R&B music which was inspired by '70s music. Rebirth explored more hip hop and pop rock, utilizing stronger use of percussion and horns, and introduced foreign genres to Lopez such as African music. Her sixth and seventh studio albums, Brave and Love? delved further into a dance music direction. Love is the main focus of Lopez's music, although she has explored themes such as dance, sex, female empowerment, friendship and self-loathing. She often includes personal experiences in her songs, such as her relationship with Ben Affleck on tracks "Dear Ben" and "He'll Be Back". Songs from Love such as "Until It Beats No More" and the personal "One Love" are also based on Lopez's own love life.

Lopez has been influenced by artists such as Tina Turner, James Brown, Michael Jackson, Madonna and Barbra Streisand. Critics have considered Lopez's soubrette vocal type to be limited. Having experienced insecurity about the strength of her voice herself, Lopez has since grown in confidence, crediting Marc Anthony for helping her "let it out". Rolling Stone observed: "Instead of strained vocal pyrotechnics, Lopez sticks to the understated R&B murmur of a round-the-way superstar who doesn't need to belt because she knows you're already paying attention [...] Behold jiggy Jennifer Lopez, song-and-dance woman: She makes a little va-va and a whole lot of voom go a long way". However, Entertainment Weekly has criticized her singing voice for lacking the trademark "husky-voiced voluptuousness" she has in her films.

Critics observe that Lopez's light vocals, though radio friendly, are often obscured by the glossy production of her music. The Baltimore Sun regards Lopez has having a breathy stylistic range, though feels that her material lacks personality and that she instead sounds similar to other artists such as Janet Jackson and Madonna. Today Music opined: "like Madonna and Janet, people don’t listen to J.Lo for the poignant lyrics—she’s best when riding a dance groove". Despite criticism, Latina ranked Lopez thirteenth on "50 Best Latin Singers", writing, "Whether it’s for her vocals, dramatic lyrics, or her pop dance beats, we guarantee that everyone will stop to listen".

Choreography and stage

Lopez has felt a deep emotional connection to dance and choreography since her childhood. While she was a child, she specialized in ballet, jazz and flamenco dance genres. Lopez has been noted to have begun her career on the variety television sketch comedy series In Living Colour, where she was apart of a dance "troupe" labeled The Fly Girls. The Fly Girls were branded as a group of versatile and attractive female dancers whose ethnic backgrounds varied, reflecting the broad base of interest in hip hop culture. There, Lopez took part in hip hop choreographed skits that were unique for their addition of "edgy" elements. In The American Dancefloor: Hip Hop Dance (2012), author Mohanalakshmi Rajakumar observed that her contribution on the series which was "the mainstream answer" to Saturday Night Live marked the beginning of Lopez's entertainment career. Lopez briefly served as a back-up dancer to recording artist Janet Jackson, who she claimed to have a considerable influence over her choreography. After commencing her own music career, Lopez's provocatively choreographed debut music video, "If You Had My Love", allowed her to become a dominant figure on Music TelevisionNetworks worldwide, a field that had previously been consumed with primarily Jackson and Madonna. Since, Lopez has become well-known for her body-emphasizing music videos such as "Waiting for Tonight", "I'm Glad" and "Dance Again" among others, which have been subject to a mixed response.Lopez exercised her dancing skills in the film Shall We Dance? (2004), for which she had to learn a new genre: ballroom. Her fluency and form received praise. Lopez often includes dance routines to her music videos.

In a study of the successful Latina in relation to sex and dance, author Priscilla Peña Ovalle observed in Dance and the Hollywood Latina: Race, Sex and Stardom (2011), that Lopez utilized the mythology of dance which makes the Latina star a "paradoxical figure". Ovalle wrote: "[the] Latina star strikes a balance: by wielding her body and its purported sexuality in familiar ways, she achieves agency in a career and nation that would otherwise exclude and her and her movement." Troy Patterson of Entertainment Weekly also noted Lopez for using her body for emphasis, "She turned herself out as the fly girl hyperversion of postfeminist power, flaunting her control by toying with the threat of excess. In consequence, her star went supernova." Lopez and Shakira are recognized for their signature moves which include "clock-wise pivoting with salsa hip circles and sequential torso undulations".

Lopez is often noted for her choreography and high-energy provocative stage performances, which have at times caused her to receive scrutiny from the public. She often includes bodysuits as part of her performances. Though noted to lip sync in the early stages of her music career, Lopez's Dance Again World Tour was praised for showcasing her live vocals and choreography synchronously. In May 2013, Lopez's performance on the finale of the television series Britain's Got Talent, which was deemed inappropriate and over-raunchy for family-friendly television, drew official viewer complaints to Ofcom.

Kiarostami has worked extensively as a screenwriter, film editor, art director and producer and has designed credit titles and publicity material. He is also a poet, photographer, painter, illustrator, and graphic designer. He is part of a generation of filmmakers in the Iranian New Wave, a Persian cinema movement that started in the late 1960s and includes pioneering directors such as Forough Farrokhzad, Sohrab Shahid Saless, Mohsen Makhmalbaf, Bahram Beizai, and Parviz Kimiavi. These filmmakers share many common techniques including the use of poetic dialogue and allegorical storytelling dealing with political and philosophical issues.

Kiarostami has a reputation for using child protagonists, for documentary-style narrative films, for stories that take place in rural villages, and for conversations that unfold inside cars, using stationary mounted cameras. He is also known for his use of contemporary Iranian poetry in the dialogue, titles, and themes of his films.

Early life and background

Kiarostami majored in painting and graphic design at the University of Tehran College of Fine Arts.

Kiarostami was born in Tehran. His first artistic experience was painting, which he continued into his late teens, winning a painting competition at the age of 18 shortly before he left home to study at the University of Tehran School of Fine Arts. He majored in painting and graphic design, and supported his studies by working as a traffic policeman.

As a painter, designer, and illustrator, Kiarostami worked in advertising in the 1960s, designing posters and creating commercials. Between 1962 and 1966, he shot around 150 advertisements for Iranian television. In the late 1960s, he began creating credit titles for films (including Gheysar by Masoud Kimiai) and illustrating children's books.

Marriage and family

In 1969, Abbas married Parvin Amir-Gholi. They had two sons, Ahmad (born 1971) and Bahman (1978). They divorced in 1982. At the age of 15, Bahman Kiarostami worked as a director and cinematographer in making the documentary Journey to the Land of the Traveller (1993).

Film career

 Kiarostami was one of the few directors who remained in Iran after the 1979 revolution, when many of his peers fled the country. He believes that it was one of the most important decisions of his career. His permanent base in Iran and his national identity have consolidated his ability as a filmmaker:

"When you take a tree that is rooted in the ground, and transfer it from one place to another, the tree will no longer bear fruit. And if it does, the fruit will not be as good as it was in its original place. This is a rule of nature. I think if I had left my country, I would be the same as the tree." -Abbas Kiarostami Kiarostami frequently wears dark spectacles or sunglasses. He needs them as he has a sensitivity to light.

In 2000, at the San Francisco Film Festival award ceremony, Kiarostami surprised everyone by giving away his Akira Kurosawa Prize for lifetime achievement in directing to veteran Iranian actor Behrooz Vossoughi for his contribution to Iranian cinema.

Film career

1970s

In 1969, when the Iranian New Wave began with Dariush Mehrjui's film Gāv, Kiarostami helped set up a filmmaking department at the Institute for Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults (Kanun) in Tehran. Its debut production and Kiarostami's first film was the twelve-minute The Bread and Alley (1970), a neo-realistic short film about a schoolboy's confrontation with an aggressive dog. Breaktime followed in 1972. The department became one of Iran's most noted film studios, producing not only Kiarostami's films, but acclaimed Persian films such as The Runner and Bashu, the Little Stranger.

A close-up of the boy in Kiarostami's first film The Bread and Alley (1970)

In the 1970s, Kiarostami pursued an individualistic style of film making. When discussing his first film, he stated:

"Bread and Alley was my first experience in cinema and I must say a very difficult one. I had to work with a very young child, a dog, and an unprofessional crew except for the cinematographer, who was nagging and complaining all the time. Well, the cinematographer, in a sense, was right because I did not follow the conventions of film making that he had become accustomed to."

Following The Experience (1973), Kiarostami released The Traveller (Mossafer) in 1974. The Traveller tells the story of Hassan Darabi, a troublesome, amoral ten-year-old boy in a small Iranian town. He wishes to see the Iran national football team play an important match in Tehran. In order to achieve that, he scams his friends and neighbors. After a number of adventures, he finally reaches Tehran stadium in time for the match. The film addresses the boy's determination in his goal, and his indifference to the effects of his actions on other people, particularly those closest to him. The film is an examination of human behavior and the balance of right and wrong. The film furthered Kiarostami's reputation of realism, diegetic simplicity, and stylistic complexity, as well as his fascination with physical and spiritual journeys.

In 1975, Kiarostami directed two short films So Can I and Two Solutions for One Problem. In early 1976, he released Colors, followed by the fifty-four minute film A Wedding Suit, a story about three teenagers coming into conflict over a suit for a wedding.

Kiarostami's first feature film was the 112-minute Report (1977). It revolved around the life of a tax collector accused of accepting bribes; suicide was among its themes. In 1979, he produced and directed First Case, Second Case.

1980s

In the early 1980s, Kiarostami directed several short films including Dental Hygiene (1980), Orderly or Disorderly (1981), and The Chorus (1982). In 1983, he directed Fellow Citizen. It was not until his release of Where Is the Friend's Home? that he began to gain recognition outside Iran.

The film tells a simple account of a conscientious eight-year-old schoolboy's quest to return his friend's notebook in a neighboring village lest his friend be expelled from school. The traditional beliefs of Iranian rural people are portrayed. The film has been noted for its poetic use of the Iranian rural landscape and its realism, both important elements of Kiarostami's work. Kiarostami made the film from a child's point of view.

Where Is the Friend's Home?, And Life Goes On (1992) (also known as Life and Nothing More), and Through the Olive Trees (1994) are described by critics as the Koker trilogy, because all three films feature the village of Koker in northern Iran. The films also relate to the 1990 Manjil-Rudbar earthquake, in which 40,000 people lost their lives. Kiarostami uses the themes of life, death, change, and continuity to connect the films. The trilogy was successful in France in the 1990s and other Western European countries such as the Netherlands, Sweden, Germany and Finland.[19] But, Kiarostami does not consider the three films to comprise a trilogy. He has suggested that the last two titles plus Taste of Cherry (1997) comprise a trilogy, given their common theme of the preciousness of life. In 1987, Kiarostami was involved in the screenwriting of The Key, which he edited but did not direct. In 1989, he released Homework.

1990s

Kiarostami's first film of the decade was Close-Up (1990), which narrates the story of the real-life trial of a man who impersonated film-maker Mohsen Makhmalbaf, conning a family into believing they would star in his new film. The family suspects theft as the motive for this charade, but the impersonator, Hossein Sabzian, argues that his motives were more complex. The part-documentary, part-staged film examines Sabzian's moral justification for usurping Makhmalbaf's identity, questioning his ability to sense his cultural and artistic flair.Close-Up received praise from directors such as Quentin Tarantino, Martin Scorsese, Werner Herzog, Jean-Luc Godard, and Nanni Moretti[23] and was released across Europe.

In 1992, Kiarostami directed Life, and Nothing More..., regarded by critics as the second film of the Koker trilogy. The film follows a father and his young son as they drive from Tehran to Koker in search of two young boys who they fear might have perished in the 1990 earthquake. As the father and son travel through the devastated landscape, they meet earthquake survivors forced to carry on with their lives amid disaster.That year Kiarostami won a Prix Roberto Rossellini, the first professional film award of his career, for his direction of the film. The last film of the so-called Koker trilogy was Through the Olive Trees (1994), which expands a peripheral scene from Life and Nothing More into the central drama. Critics such as Adrian Martin have called the style of filmmaking in the Koker trilogy as "diagrammatical", linking the zig-zagging patterns in the landscape and the geometry of forces of life and the world. A flashback of the zigzag path in Life and Nothing More... (1992) in turn triggers the spectator's memory of the previous film, Where Is the Friend's Home? from 1987, shot before the earthquake. This symbolically links to the post-earthquake reconstruction in Through the Olive Trees in 1994. In 1995, Miramax Films released Through the Olive Trees in the US theaters.

Kiarostami next wrote the screenplays for The Journey and The White Balloon (1995), for his former assistant Jafar Panahi.[6] Between 1995 and 1996, he was involved in the production of Lumière and Company, a collaboration with 40 other film directors.

Kiarostami won the Palme d'Or (Golden Palm) award at the Cannes Film Festival for Taste of Cherry. It is the drama of a man, Mr. Badii, determined to commit suicide. The film involved themes such as morality, the legitimacy of the act of suicide, and the meaning of compassion.

Kiarostami directed The Wind Will Carry Us in 1999, which won the Grand Jury Prize (Silver Lion) at the Venice International Film Festival. The film contrasted rural and urban views on the dignity of labor, addressing themes of gender equality and the benefits of progress, by means of a stranger's sojourn in a remote Kurdish village. An unusual feature of the movie is that many of the characters are heard but not seen; at least thirteen to fourteen speaking characters in the film are never seen.

2000s

In 2001, Kiarostami and his assistant, Seifollah Samadian, traveled to Kampala, Uganda at the request of the United Nations International Fund for Agricultural Development, to film a documentary about programs assisting Ugandan orphans. He stayed for ten days and made ABC Africa. The trip was originally intended as a research in preparation for the filming, but Kiarostami ended up editing the entire film from the video footage shot there. The high number of orphans in Uganda has resulted from the deaths of parents in the AIDS epidemic.

Time Out editor and National Film Theatre chief programmer, Geoff Andrew, said in referring to the film: "Like his previous four features, this film is not about death but life-and-death: how they're linked, and what attitude we might adopt with regard to their symbiotic inevitability."

The following year, Kiarostami directed Ten, revealing an unusual method of filmmaking and abandoning many scriptwriting conventions.Kiarostami focused on the socio-political landscape of Iran. The images are seen through the eyes of one woman as she drives through the streets of Tehran over a period of several days. Her journey is composed of ten conversations with various passengers, which include her sister, a hitchhiking prostitute, and a jilted bride and her demanding young son. This style of filmmaking was praised by a number of critics.

A. O. Scott in The New York Times wrote that Kiarostami, "in addition to being perhaps the most internationally admired Iranian filmmaker of the past decade, is also among the world masters of automotive cinema...He understands the automobile as a place of reflection, observation and, above all, talk."

In 2003, Kiarostami directed Five, a poetic feature with no dialogue or characterization. It consists of five long shots of nature which are single-take sequences, shot with a hand-held DV camera, along the shores of the Caspian Sea. Although the film lacks a clear storyline, Geoff Andrew argues that the film is "more than just pretty pictures". He adds, "Assembled in order, they comprise a kind of abstract or emotional narrative arc, which moves evocatively from separation and solitude to community, from motion to rest, near-silence to sound and song, light to darkness and back to light again, ending on a note of rebirth and regeneration." He notes the degree of artifice concealed behind the apparent simplicity of the imagery.

Kiarostami produced 10 on Ten (2004), a journal documentary that shares ten lessons on movie-making while he drives through the locations of his past films. The movie is shot on digital video with a stationary camera mounted inside the car, in a manner reminiscent of Taste of Cherry and Ten. In 2005 and 2006, he directed The Roads of Kiarostami, a 32-minute documentary that reflects on the power of landscape, combining austere black-and-white photographs with poetic observations,engaging music with political subject matter. Also in 2005, Kiarostami contributed the central section to Tickets, a portmanteau film set on a train traveling through Italy. The other segments were directed by Ken Loach and Ermanno Olmi.

In 2008, Kiarostami directed the feature Shirin, which features close-ups of many notable Iranian actresses and the French actress Juliette Binoche as they watch a film based on a partly mythological Persian romance tale of Khosrow and Shirin, with themes of female self-sacrifice.[39][40] The film has been described as "a compelling exploration of the relationship between image, sound and female spectatorship."

2010s

Certified Copy (2010), again starring Juliette Binoche, was made in Tuscany. It is Kiarostami's first film to be shot and produced outside Iran. The story of an encounter between a British man and a French woman, it was entered in competition for the Palme d'Or in the 2010 Cannes Film Festival. Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian describes the film as an "intriguing oddity", and said, "'Certified Copy' is the deconstructed portrait of a marriage, acted with well-intentioned fervour by Juliette Binoche, but persistently baffling, contrived, and often simply bizarre – a highbrow misfire of the most peculiar sort."He concluded that the film is "unmistakably an example of Kiarostami's compositional technique, though not a successful example." Roger Ebert, however, praised the film, noting that "Kiarostami is rather brilliant in the way he creates offscreen spaces." Binoche won the Best Actress Award at Cannes for her performance in the film. Kiarostami's next, Like Someone in Love, set and shot in Japan, received mixed reviews and even some pans upon its premiere at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival.

Film festival work

Kiarostami (left) at the Estoril Film Festival in 2010

Kiarostami has been a jury member at numerous film festivals, most notably the Cannes Film Festival in 1993, 2002 and 2005. He was also the president of the Caméra d'Or Jury in Cannes Film Festival 2005. Other representatives include the Venice Film Festival in 1985, the Locarno International Film Festival in 1990, the San Sebastian International Film Festival in 1996, the São Paulo International Film Festival in 2004, the Capalbio Cinema Festival in 2007 (in which he was president of the jury), and the Küstendorf Film and Music Festival in 2011.He also makes regular appearances at many other film festivals across Europe, including the Estoril Film Festival in Portugal.

Cinematic style

Main article: Cinematic style of Abbas Kiarostami

Individualism

Though Kiarostami has been compared to Satyajit Ray, Vittorio de Sica, Éric Rohmer, and Jacques Tati, his films exhibit a singular style, often employing techniques of his own invention.

During the filming of The Bread and Alley in 1970, Kiarostami had major differences with his experienced cinematographer about how to film the boy and the attacking dog. While the cinematographer wanted separate shots of the boy approaching, a close up of his hand as he enters the house and closes the door, followed by a shot of the dog, Kiarostami believed that if the three scenes could be captured as a whole it would have a more profound impact in creating tension over the situation. That one shot took around forty days to complete, until Kiarostami was fully content with the scene. Kiarostami later commented that the breaking of scenes would have disrupted the rhythm and content of the film's structure, preferring to let the scene flow as one.

Unlike other directors, Kiarostami has showed no interest in staging extravagant combat scenes or complicated chase scenes in large-scale productions, instead attempting to mold the medium of film to his own specifications.[46] Kiarostami appeared to have settled on his style with the Koker trilogy, which included a myriad of references to his own film material, connecting common themes and subject matter between each of the films. Stephen Bransford has contended that Kiarostami's films do not contain references to the work of other directors, but are fashioned in such a manner that they are self-referenced. Bransford believes his films are often fashioned into an ongoing dialectic with one film reflecting on and partially demystifying an earlier film.

He has continued experimenting with new modes of filming, using different directorial methods and techniques. A case in point is Ten, which was filmed in a moving automobile in which Kiarostami was not present. He gave suggestions to the actors about what to do, and a camera placed on the dashboard filmed them while they drove around Tehran. The camera was allowed to roll, capturing the faces of the people involved during their daily routine, using a series of extreme-close shots. Ten was an experiment that used digital cameras to virtually eliminate the director. This new direction towards a Digital-Micro-Cinema, is defined as a micro-budget filmmaking practice, allied with a digital production basis.

Kiarostami's cinema offers a different definition of film. According to film professors such as Jamsheed Akrami of William Paterson University, Kiarostami has consistently tried to redefine film by forcing the increased involvement of the audience. In recent years, he has also progressively trimmed the timespan within his films. Akrami thinks that this reduces the filmmaking from a collective endeavor to a purer, more basic form of artistic expression.

Fiction and non-fiction

Kiarostami's films contain a notable degree of ambiguity, an unusual mixture of simplicity and complexity, and often a mix of fictional and documentary elements. Kiarostami has stated, "We can never get close to the truth except through lying."

The boundary between fiction and non-fiction is significantly reduced in Kiarostami's cinema.[50] The French philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy, writing about Kiarostami, and in particular Life and Nothing More..., has argued that his films are neither quite fiction nor quite documentary. Life and Nothing More..., he argues, is neither representation nor reportage, but rather "evidence":

[I]t all looks like reporting, but everything underscores (indique à l'évidence) that it is the fiction of a documentary (in fact, Kiarostami shot the film several months after the earthquake), and that it is rather a document about "fiction": not in the sense of imagining the unreal, but in the very specific and precise sense of the technique, of the art of constructing images. For the image by means of which, each time, each opens a world and precedes himself in it (s'y précède) is not pregiven (donnée toute faite) (as are those of dreams, phantasms or bad films): it is to be invented, cut and edited. Thus it is evidence, insofar as, if one day I happen to look at my street on which I walk up and down ten times a day, I construct for an instant a new evidence of my street.

For Jean-Luc Nancy, this notion of cinema as "evidence", rather than as documentary or imagination, is tied to the way Kiarostami deals with life-and-death (cf. the remark by Geoff Andrew on ABC Africa, cited above, to the effect that Kiarostami's films are not about death but about life-and-death):

Existence resists the indifference of life-and-death, it lives beyond mechanical "life," it is always its own mourning, and its own joy. It becomes figure, image. It does not become alienated in images, but it is presented there: the images are the evidence of its existence, the objectivity of its assertion. This thought—which, for me, is the very thought of this film [Life and Nothing More...]—is a difficult thought, perhaps the most difficult. It's a slow thought, always under way, fraying a path so that the path itself becomes thought. It is that which frays images so that images become this thought, so that they become the evidence of this thought—and not in order to "represent" it.

In other words, wanting to accomplish more than just represent life and death as opposing forces, but rather to illustrate the way in which each element of nature is inextricably linked, Kiarostami has devised a cinema that does more than just present the viewer with the documentable "facts," but neither is it simply a matter of artifice. Because "existence" means more than simply life, it is projective, containing an irreducibly fictive element, but in this "being more than" life, it is therefore contaminated by mortality. Nancy is giving a clue, in other words, toward the interpretation of Kiarostami's statement that lying is the only way to truth.

Themes of life and death

The concepts of change and continuity, in addition to the themes of life and death, play a major role in Kiarostami's works. In the Koker trilogy, these themes play a central role. As illustrated in the aftermath of the 1990 Tehran earthquake disaster, they also represent the power of human resilience to overcome and defy destruction.

Unlike the Koker films, which convey an instinctual thirst for survival, Taste of Cherry explores the fragility of life and focuses on how precious it is.

Symbols of death abound in The Wind Will Carry Us, with the scenery of the graveyard, the imminence of the old woman's passing, and the ancestors referred to early in the film by the character Farzad. Such devices prompt the viewer to reflect on the parameters of the afterlife and immaterial existence. The viewer is asked to consider what constitutes the soul, and what happens to it after death. In discussing the film, Kiarostami has said that he is the person who raises questions, rather than answers them.

Some film critics believe that the assemblage of light versus dark scenes in Kiarostami's film grammar, such as in Taste of Cherry and Wind Will Carry Us, suggests the mutual existence of life with its endless possibilities, and death as a factual moment of anyone's life.

Visual and audio techniques

Kiarostami's style is notable for the use of panoramic long shots, such as in the closing sequences of Life and Nothing More and Through the Olive Trees, where the audience is intentionally distanced physically from the characters in order to stimulate reflection on their fate. Taste of Cherry is punctuated throughout by shots of this kind, including distant overhead shots of the suicidal Badii's car moving across the hills, usually while he is conversing with a passenger. However, the visual distancing techniques stand in juxtaposition to the sound of the dialog, which always remains in the foreground. Like the coexistence of a private and public space, or the frequent framing of landscapes through car windows, this fusion of distance with proximity can be seen as a way of generating suspense in the most mundane of moments.

This relationship between distance and intimacy, between imagery and sound, is also present in the opening sequence to The Wind Will Carry Us. Michael J. Anderson has argued that such a thematic application of this central concept of presence without presence, through using such techniques, and by often referring to characters which the viewer does not see and sometimes not hear directly affects the nature and concept of space in the geographical framework in which the world is portrayed. Kiarostami's use of sound and imagery conveys a world beyond what is directly visible and/or audible, which Anderson believes emphasizes the interconnectedness and shrinking of time and space in the modern world of telecommunications.

Other commentators such as film critic Ben Zipper believe that Kiarostami's work as a landscape artist is evident in his compositional distant shots of the dry hills throughout a number of his films directly impacting on his construction on the rural landscapes within his films.

Poetry and imagery

Ahmad Karimi-Hakkak, of the University of Maryland, argues that one aspect of Kiarostami's cinematic style is that he is able to capture the essence of Persian poetry and create poetic imagery within the landscape of his films. In several of his movies such as Where is the Friend's Home and The Wind Will Carry Us, classical Persian poetry is directly quoted in the film, highlighting the artistic link and intimate connection between them. This in turn reflects on the connection between the past and present, between continuity and change.

Tomb of Khayyam, Persian poet and philosopher in Nishapur

The characters recite poems mainly from classical Persian poet Omar Khayyám or modern Persian poets such as Sohrab Sepehri and Forough Farrokhzad. One scene in The Wind Will Carry Us has a long shot of a wheat field with rippling golden crops through which the doctor, accompanied by the filmmaker, is riding his scooter in a twisting road. In response to the comment that the other world is a better place than this one, the doctor recites this poem of Khayyam:

“              They promise of houries in heaven

But I would say wine is better

Take the present to the promises

A drum sounds melodious from distance

However, the aesthetic element involved with the poetry goes much farther back in time and is used more subtly than these examples suggest. Beyond issues of adaptation of text to film, Kiarostami often begins with an insistent will to give visual embodiment to certain specific image-making techniques in Persian poetry, both classical and modern. This prominently results in enunciating a larger philosophical position, namely the ontological oneness of poetry and film.

It has been argued that the creative merit of Kiarostami's adaptation of Sohrab Sepehri and Forough Farrokhzad's poems extends the domain of textual transformation. Adaptation is defined as the transformation of a prior to a new text. Sima Daad of the University of Washington contends that Kiarostami's adaptation arrives at the theoretical realm of adaptation by expanding its limit from inter-textual potential to trans-generic potential.

Spirituality

Kiarostami's films often reflect upon immaterial concepts such as soul and afterlife. At times, however, the very concept of the spiritual seems to be contradicted by the medium. Some film theorists have argued that The Wind Will Carry Us provides a template by which a filmmaker can communicate metaphysical reality. The limits of the frame, the material representation of a space in dialog with another that is not represented, physically become metaphors for the relationship between this world and those which may exist apart from it. By limiting the space of the mise en scène, Kiarostami expands the space of the art.

Kiarostami's "complex" sound-images and philosophical approach have caused frequent comparisons with "mystical" filmmakers such as Andrei Tarkovsky and Robert Bresson. While acknowledging substantial cultural differences, much of Western critical writing about Kiarostami positions him as the Iranian equivalent of such directors, by virtue of a similarly austere, "spiritual" poetics and moral commitment.Some draw parallels between certain imagery in Kiarostami's films with that of Sufi concepts.

While most English-language writers, such as David Sterritt and the Spanish film professor Alberto Elena, interpret Kiarostami's films as spiritual, other critics, including David Walsh and Hamish Ford, have not rated its influence in his films as lower.

Poetry, art and photography

Installation art by Abbas Kiarostami

Kiarostami, along with Jean Cocteau, Satyajit Ray, Derek Jarman, and Gulzar, is s filmmaker who expresses himself in other genres, such as poetry, set designs, painting, or photography. They express their interpretation of the world and their understanding of our preoccupations and identities.

Kiarostami is a noted photographer and poet. A bilingual collection of more than 200 of his poems, Walking with the Wind, was published by Harvard University Press. His photographic work includes Untitled Photographs, a collection of over thirty photographs, mostly of snow landscapes, taken in his hometown Tehran, between 1978 and 2003. In 1999, He also published a collection of his poems. Kiarostami also produced Mozart's opera, Cosi fan Tutte, which premiered in Aix-en-Provence in 2003 before being performed at the English National Opera in London in 2004.[38]

Riccardo Zipoli, from the Università Ca' Foscari Venezia in Venice, has studied the relations and interconnections between Kiarostami's poems and his films. The results of the analysis reveal how Kiarostami's treatment of "uncertain reality" is similar in his poems and films.[63] Kiarostami's poetry is reminiscent of the later nature poems of the Persian painter-poet, Sohrab Sepehri. On the other hand, the succinct allusion to philosophical truths without the need for deliberation, the non-judgmental tone of the poetic voice, and the structure of the poem—absence of personal pronouns, adverbs or over reliance on adjectives—as well as the lines containing a kigo (a season word) gives much of this poetry a Haikuesque characteristic.

Views on women

Kiarostami had an interview with Voice of America that was controversial. He said:

"...I would call this being-realistic. Being-realistic for me means that I have come to the point to say that I do not know anything about women. And no effort for understanding women could be conclusive. The final solution, in my opinion, is to love without understanding. That's the only solution. The main problem these days between men and women, in my opinion, is lack of understanding. And it is not something capable of being understood because men and women do not live in the same world. We totally belong to very different universes. Maybe this difference is rooted in hormones; or maybe social responsibilities. As you know, men's interests by their nature are on their jobs. They are very much dependent on their jobs.

[Interviewer: Women too are interested in their jobs, aren't they?]

No; for women it is the exception not the rule. If they do not want to work they would proudly say that they want to stay home for a while and do feminine tasks. And they are very logical in saying that. But in case of a man who thinks he could take a break, the first person who gives him a break is his wife. That kind of right has never been given and considered in the world for men. In the whole history the dependency of men to his occupation is like breathing; it is not discretionary. But working is still something optional for women and this is actually very beautiful. This is not a nervous, negative, or eastern view of women; it only means that women are beautiful. Women create motivation for men to go on. If a man does a task satisfactorily it means that he receives a great energy from his woman. So how could we say that women and men are similar even in this area? I would come into agreement if you say that men are capable of having tender heart and being interested in making love as well as women. If you say such a thing, then I would say that women can work hard like men. … This phrase seems strange for any type of women specifically the one who has a husband. I earned all my gray hair. I make films based on what I see around me. Marriage is essential for all women. I don't care if women are becoming my enemy after saying this. It doesn't matter I am getting old."