{"id":33255,"date":"2011-02-11T19:47:19","date_gmt":"2011-02-12T00:47:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=33255"},"modified":"2011-02-11T20:04:41","modified_gmt":"2011-02-12T01:04:41","slug":"support-jafar-panahi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=33255","title":{"rendered":"Support Jafar Panahi"},"content":{"rendered":"

Iranian director Jafar Panahi has been sentenced to 6 years in prison and has also been banned from making another film for the next 20 years. The reason he was originally arrested was that it was believed that a film he was preparing to make was about the recent controversial elections in Iran, and included criticisms of the current regime. He’s 50 years old. This is a life sentence. I have written a lot about Jafar Panahi over the years, and have reviewed most of his wonderful films on my site. In 2006, he won the Silver Berlin Bear award for his film Offside<\/i>, a terrific movie about 6 girls who dress up as boys in order to go to a soccer game in Tehran. His imprisonment during last year’s Cannes Film Festival drew international spotlights onto his plight, which resulted in him being released from prison, briefly, awaiting his sentence. He had been on the jury at Cannes, and his seat was left open and available the entire time, a glaring reminder of the situation. The Berlinale is going on right now and Jafar Panahi managed, somehow, to get a letter out of prison in Iran to Isabella Rossellini, president of this year’s Berlinale jury, at great risk to himself. He will be punished severely for this action, since he has been forbidden to contact the outside world. Rossellini read his letter at the opening ceremony<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This is absolutely heartbreaking. My heart is broken. But it is important to watch the clip below, and to hear his words, which have made it out to us. I have much to say about this, and much more to think about, but that is not important now. If you are interested in reading my reviews of his movies, they are easily search-able on my site. All of them are worth it. See this man’s work.<\/em> He is, at this very moment, being silenced. <\/p>\n

But not before he got this letter out to Ms. Rossellini.<\/p>\n