{"id":94674,"date":"2015-01-15T08:21:23","date_gmt":"2015-01-15T13:21:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=94674"},"modified":"2022-02-07T11:06:59","modified_gmt":"2022-02-07T16:06:59","slug":"jafar-panahi-will-not-be-silenced","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=94674","title":{"rendered":"Jafar Panahi Will Not Be Silenced"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Iranian-film-director-Jaf-007\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\nJafar Panahi was arrested in 2009 on the suspicion of making a film critical of the regime in Iran. He was not allowed to travel, to give interviews, to make films. He was in prison. He went on hunger strike. Finally, the sentence came down, and it was devastating: A 20-year ban on making films. People made impassioned speeches about him from the international stages of the Berlinale and the Cannes Film Festival. I hosted an Iranian Film Blog-a-thon on my site<\/a>, just as a way to show solidarity and to (in my own small way) deny the Iranian regime the privacy with which they wished to operate. Jafar Panahi is official Iran’s worst nightmare: a local artist, critical of the conditions in Iran, especially the position of women (which he lampoons in Offside<\/i>, a great film<\/a>, and shows with a documentary-like realism and brutality in The Circle<\/i><\/a>), who makes films that have a passionate international following, people in Evil America who sit around waiting for “the next Panahi.” The regime HATES that. It’s awesome. Keep hating, haters. You’re not the boss of me. Persecuted and hounded for years, they finally “got” Panahi, and it was a devastating time for those of us who love Panahi’s films.<\/p>\n

But since then \u2026 we have had two extraordinary films from him (one smuggled out of Iran inside a pastry to make its premiere at Cannes). People who collaborate with him are also arrested, their passports revoked. And yet the stakes are so high, and Panahi is so beloved, that people are willing to take those risks. The mere FACT of the EXISTENCE of these films is an extraordinary testament to not only Panahi but any oppressed artist anywhere. <\/p>\n

The films he has made since the official ban came down have been This Is Not a Film<\/i> (my review here<\/a>) and Closed Curtain<\/i> (my review here<\/a>, a film which was on my individual Top Ten<\/a> for 2014.) After Closed Curtain<\/i>, I found myself thinking, despairingly, “Where can he go from here? Is he saying goodbye?” The title alone seemed to suggest his state of mind. <\/p>\n

He is not supposed to be doing ANY of this, remember. He is supposed to have vanished. He is supposed to accept silence (as his heartbreaking letter smuggled somehow to Isabella Rossellini, read from the stage of the Berlinale attests). <\/p>\n

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