The residence of celebrated Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami was reportedly hit in overnight strikes on Tehran’s Chizar district, according to his son. [Getty]
The home of Palme d’Or-winning Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami was damaged in overnight air strikes in Tehran, according to a statement from his son.
Ahmad Kiarostami said in an Instagram post that the property was hit during what he described as an Israeli bombing raid on the capital’s Chizar district.
“Last night, the Chizar neighbourhood was bombed, where both my mother’s and my father’s houses are located,” he wrote. “My mother called in a shaken voice to reassure me she was safe, but this morning I learned that my father’s house had been damaged.”
He added: “I was six or seven when we moved into this house, just months before the 1979 revolution. My father always said it was the most peaceful place in the world.”
According to Deadline, no one was inside the property at the time of the strike. The report added that the house has remained in the family since Kiarostami’s death in 2016 at the age of 76.
His former wife, Parvin Amirgholi, who lives nearby in the same district, also sustained minor damage to her home but was not injured.
Kiarostami, widely regarded as one of Iran’s most celebrated filmmakers, won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 1997 for Taste of Cherry.
Prior to the latest incident, PBS reported that US and Israeli strikes on Iran since the outbreak of the conflict on 28 February have damaged at least four cultural and historical sites.
These include Golestan Palace, as well as Chehel Sotoun and Masjed-e Jame, the country’s oldest Friday mosque, raising concerns over the impact of the escalating war on protected heritage sites.
The United Nations cultural agency UNESCO has since confirmed verified damage to these locations, while both Iran and Lebanon have submitted requests to place additional sites under enhanced protection.
