{"id":107694,"date":"2022-12-24T07:15:28","date_gmt":"2022-12-24T12:15:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/?p=107694"},"modified":"2022-12-24T07:15:28","modified_gmt":"2022-12-24T12:15:28","slug":"an-iranian-masterwork-opens-with-its-director-behind-bars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/2022\/12\/24\/an-iranian-masterwork-opens-with-its-director-behind-bars\/","title":{"rendered":"An Iranian Masterwork Opens With Its Director Behind Bars"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"VOA \u2014 NEW YORK \u2014 <\/span>After being arrested for creating antigovernment propaganda in 2010, the Iranian director Jafar Panahi was banned from making films for 20 years.<\/p>\n

Since then, he\u2019s made five widely acclaimed features.<\/p>\n

His latest,\u00a0No Bears<\/em>, opens soon in U.S. theaters while Panahi is in prison.<\/p>\n

In July, Panahi went to the Tehran prosecutor\u2019s office to inquire about the arrest of Mohammad Rasoulof, a filmmaker detained in the government\u2019s crackdown on protests.<\/p>\n

Panahi himself was arrested and, on a decade-old charge, sentenced to six years in jail.<\/p>\n

Panahi\u2019s films, made in Iran without government approval, are sly feats of artistic resistance. He plays himself in meta self-portraitures that clandestinely capture the mechanics of Iranian society with a humanity both playful and devastating. Panahi made\u00a0This is Not a Film<\/em>\u00a0in his apartment.\u00a0Taxi\u00a0<\/em>was shot almost entirely inside a car, with a smiling Panahi playing the driver and picking up passengers along the way.<\/p>\n

In\u00a0No Bears<\/em>, Panahi plays a fictionalized version of himself while making a film in a rural town along the Iran-Turkey border. It\u2019s one of the most acclaimed films of the year.<\/p>\n

The New York Times<\/em>\u00a0and The Associated Press named it one of the top 10 films of the year. Film critic Justin Chang of the\u00a0Los Angeles Times<\/em>\u00a0called\u00a0No Bears<\/em>\u00a02022\u2019s best movie.<\/p>\n

No Bears<\/em>\u00a0is landing at a time when the Iranian film community is increasingly ensnarled in a harsh government crackdown. A week after\u00a0No Bears\u00a0<\/em>premiered at the Venice Film Festival, with Panahi already behind bars, 22-year-old Mahsa Amini died while being held by Iran\u2019s morality police. Her death sparked three months of women-led protests, still ongoing, that have rocked Iran\u2019s theocracy.<\/p>\n

More than 500 protesters have been killed in the crackdown since Sept. 17, according to the group Human Rights Activists in Iran. More than 18,200 people have been detained.<\/p>\n

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\"This<\/div>\n<\/div>
This image released by Sideshow and Janus Films shows a scene from the film ‘No Bears.’<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Saturday, the prominent Iranian actress Taraneh Alidoosti, star of Asghar Farhadi\u2019s Oscar-winning\u00a0The Salesman<\/em>, was arrested after posting an Instagram message expressing solidarity with a man recently executed for crimes allegedly committed during the protests.<\/p>\n

In the outcry that followed Alidoosti\u2019s arrest, Farhadi \u2014 the director of\u00a0A Separation<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0A Hero<\/em>\u00a0\u2014 called for Alidoosti\u2019s release \u201calongside that of my other fellow cineastes Jafar Panahi and Mohammad Rasoulof and all the other less-known prisoners whose only crime is the attempt for a better life.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf showing such support is a crime, then tens of millions of people of this land are criminals,\u201d Farhadi wrote on Instagram.<\/p>\n

Panahi\u2019s absence has been acutely felt on the world\u2019s top movie stages. At Venice, where\u00a0No Bears<\/em>\u00a0was given a special jury prize, a red-carpet walkout was staged at the film\u2019s premiere. Festival director Alberto Barbera and jury president Julianne Moore were among the throngs silently protesting the imprisonment of Panahi and other filmmakers.<\/p>\n

No Bears<\/em>\u00a0will also again test a long-criticized Academy Awards policy. Submissions for the Oscars\u2019 best international film category are made only by a country\u2019s government. Critics have said that allows authoritative regimes to dictate which films compete for the sought-after prize.<\/p>\n

Arthouse distributors Sideshow and Janus Films, which helped lead Ryusuke Hamaguchi\u2019s Japanese drama\u00a0Drive My Car<\/em>\u00a0to four Oscar nominations a year ago, acquired\u00a0No Bears<\/em>\u00a0with the hope that its merit and Panahi\u2019s cause would outshine that restriction.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe puts himself at risk every time he does something like this,\u201d says Jonathan Sehring, Sideshow founder and a veteran independent film executive. \u201cWhen you have regimes that won\u2019t even let a filmmaker make a movie and in spite of it they do, it\u2019s inspiring.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe knew it wasn\u2019t going to be the Iranian submission, obviously,\u201d adds Sehring. \u201cBut we wanted to position Jafar as a potential best director, best screenplay, a number of different categories. And we also believe the film can work theatrically.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences declined to comment on possible reforms to the international film category. Among the 15 shortlisted films for the award announced Wednesday was the Danish entry\u00a0Holy Spider<\/em>, set in Iran. After Iranian authorities declined to authorize it, director Ali Abbasi shot the film, based on real-life serial killings, in Jordan.<\/p>\n

No Bears<\/em>\u00a0opens in New York on Friday and Los Angeles on Jan. 10 before rolling out nationally.<\/p>\n

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\"FILE<\/div>\n<\/div>
FILE – Actress Taraneh Alidoosti at the 69th international film festival, Cannes, southern France, in May 2016.<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

In it, Panahi rents an apartment from which he, with a fitful internet signal, directs a film with the help of assistants. Their handing off cameras and memory cards gives, perhaps, an illuminating window into how Panahi has worked under government restrictions. In\u00a0No Bears<\/em>, he comes under increasing pressure from village authorities who believe he\u2019s accidentally captured a compromising image.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not easy to make a movie to begin with, but to make it secretly is very difficult, especially in Iran where a totalitarian government has such tight control over the country and spies everywhere,\u201d says Iranian film scholar and documentarian Jamsheed Akrami.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really a triumph. I can\u2019t compare him with any other filmmaker.\u201d<\/p>\n

In one of the film\u2019s most moving scenes, Panahi stands along the border at night.<\/p>\n

Gazing at the lights in the distance, he contemplates crossing it \u2014 a life in exile that Panahi in real life steadfastly refused to ever adopt.<\/p>\n

Some aspects of the film are incredibly close to reality. Parts of\u00a0No Bears<\/em>\u00a0were shot in Turkey just like the film within the film. In Turkey, an Iranian couple (played by Mina Kavani and Bakhiyar Panjeei) are trying to obtain stolen passports to reach Europe.<\/p>\n

Kavani herself has been living in exile for the last seven years. She starred in Sepideh Farsi\u2019s 2014 romance\u00a0Red Rose<\/em>. When nudity in the film led to media harassment, Kavani chose to live in Paris. Kavani was struck by the profound irony of Panahi directing her by video chat from over the border.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the genius of his art. The idea that we were both in exile but on a different side was magic,\u201d says Kavani. \u201cHe was the first person that talked about that, what\u2019s happening to exiled Iranian people outside of Iran. This is very interesting to me, that he is in exile in his own country, but he\u2019s talking about those who left his country.\u201d<\/p>\n

Many of Panahi\u2019s colleagues imagine that even in his jail cell, Panahi is probably thinking through his next film \u2014 whether he ever gets to make it or not. When\u00a0No Bears\u00a0<\/em>played at the New York Film Festival, Kavani read a statement from Panahi.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe history of Iranian cinema witnesses the constant and active presence of independent directors who have struggled to push back censorship and to ensure the survival of this art,\u201d it said. \u201cWhile on this path, some were banned from making films, others were forced into exile or reduced to isolation. And yet, the hope of creating again is a reason for existence. No matter where, when, or under what circumstances, an independent filmmaker is either creating or thinking.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

VOA \u2014 NEW YORK \u2014 After being arrested for creating antigovernment propaganda in 2010, the Iranian director Jafar Panahi was banned from making films for 20 years. Since then, he\u2019s made five widely acclaimed features. His latest,\u00a0No Bears, opens soon in U.S. theaters while Panahi is in prison. In July, Panahi went to the Tehran […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":107695,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-107694","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latests"],"translation":{"provider":"WPGlobus","version":"3.0.2","language":"en","enabled_languages":["fa","en"],"languages":{"fa":{"title":true,"content":true,"excerpt":false},"en":{"title":false,"content":false,"excerpt":false}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107694","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=107694"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107694\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":107697,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107694\/revisions\/107697"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/107695"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=107694"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=107694"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=107694"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}