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Kiarostami studied Fine Arts at the University of Tehran, worked as a graphic designer and then joined the Institute for Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults, where he set up the filmmaking department. That is where his film career started, at the age of 30, with the neorealist short film Bread and Alley. In 1969 he married Parvin Amir-Gholi, whom he divorced in 1982; he has two children: Ahmad (1971) and Bahman (1978). Kiarostami belongs to the generation of filmmakers who started the renowned Iranian New Wave, which began in the 1960s and became popular in 1970. This movement created innovative artistic films that were highly philosophical and political in nature; some using realism, others through metaphor. He was also a poet; he published a collection of verse in 1999.