By this time Kiarostami was a known and fairly successful film-maker, but his reception in Europe suddenly placed him next to Vittorio De Sica of Bicycle Thieves (1948), Yasujirō Ozu of Tokyo Story (1953) and Satyajit Ray of The Apu Trilogy (1955-1959) and gave his work global power and significance. The following decade, Jafar Panahi won international critical acclaim when his film The Circle (1999) premiered at the Venice Film Festival.
