Trained under Abbas Kiarostami, Jafar Panahi has emerged as one of the most vital voices in contemporary Iranian cinema.
His films, which often blur the line between fiction and non-fiction, have repeatedly been banned or censored by Iranian authorities. In 2010, Panahi was sentenced to six years in prison and subject to a 20-year ban on filmmaking on charges of “propaganda against the Islamic Republic.” This, however, did not deter Panahi from continuing to make films clandestinely under these restrictions.
Fresh off the back of two Oscar nominations for his latest film It Was Just an Accident, we’re celebrate the great Iranian director by revisiting three of his earlier films: genre-busting The Mirror (1997), This is Not a Film, filmed under house arrest in 2011, and the Golden Bear-winning Taxi Tehran (2015).
This is Not a Film
How can you make a film when your government has banned you? This clandestine documentary is Panahi’s brilliant and brave answer.
This Is Not A Film depicts Panahi’s day-to-day life while under house arrest in his Tehran apartment. We see him discussing his plight with co-director Mojtaba Mirtahmasb and reflecting on the meaning and art of filmmaking, in an intimate self-portrait that is by turns humorous, moving and a defiant statement of creative resilience in the face of oppression.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ ‘A compelling personal document, a quietly passionate statement of artistic intent, and an uncompromising testament to his belief in cinema.’ – The Guardian
This is Not a Film screens from Saturday 31 January.
The Mirror
When her mother is late to pick her up from school, Mina takes matters into her own hands, navigating public transport and Tehran’s precarious traffic. But what begins as a child’s-eye portrait of Iranian society soon reveals itself to be something richer and more surprising, as a frustrated Mina appears to shuck off the role she has been cast in and set off ‘for real’. Working between fiction and non-fiction, Panahi turns narrative filmmaking inside out in this early career breakthrough.
‘The Mirror poses the deepest questions about illusion, reality and filmmaking‘ – The New York Times
The Mirror screens on Sunday 1 February.
Taxi Tehran
Panahi directs and stars in this docufiction miracle, which finds him posing as a taxi driver in Tehran who, rather than demanding cash payment from customers for his services, asks only to hear something about their lives. The result is a symphony of the diverse voices of the Iranian capital.
This beautiful, blended, hybrid film – in which Panahi is both auteur and actor, conductor and interlocutor – won the Golden Bear at the 2015 Berlin Film Festival.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ ‘This spry, sharp and relentlessly clever middle finger to censorship is Panahi’s boldest act of defiance to date‘ – TimeOut
Taxi Tehran screens on Sunday 8 February.