Iranian cinema got a rare bit of good news recently. Earlier this month, two of the country’s most famous dissident directors —Jafar Panahi (Taxi, No Bears) and Mohammad Rasoulof (Berlin Golden Bear winner There Is No Evil) were released from prison after months behind bars.
The elation surrounding their release was short lived: Rasoulof was soon served with new, dubious, charges that could land him in back in jail. And Panahi is still banned from making movies or from leaving the country. And given the continued, and brutal, suppression of protesters in the country by the Tehran regime, there is little cause for celebration.
“Releasing some individuals among thousands who have been arrested during a few past months, doesn’t lead me to optimism,” notes Iranian documentary filmmaker Farahnaz Sharifi (Profession: Documentarist). “Considering all these issues and censorship and restrictions we are facing with, there is a long process...
The elation surrounding their release was short lived: Rasoulof was soon served with new, dubious, charges that could land him in back in jail. And Panahi is still banned from making movies or from leaving the country. And given the continued, and brutal, suppression of protesters in the country by the Tehran regime, there is little cause for celebration.
“Releasing some individuals among thousands who have been arrested during a few past months, doesn’t lead me to optimism,” notes Iranian documentary filmmaker Farahnaz Sharifi (Profession: Documentarist). “Considering all these issues and censorship and restrictions we are facing with, there is a long process...
- 2/18/2023
- by Scott Roxborough
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Though not as well known outside Iran as Abbas Kiarostami or Jafar Panahi, writer-director Asghar Farhadi has been steadily building an impressive cinematic resume since graduating from Tehran University in 1998 with a degree in dramatic arts. After a stint developing stage plays and TV series for Iran’s national broadcasting corporation, Farhadi co-scripted Ebrahim Hatamikia’s post-9/11 political farce Low Heights, about a desperate man who hijacks a plane carrying his wife and handicapped son. He then moved into the director’s chair with Dancing in the Dust and Beautiful City, a social-issue film concerning the archaic custom of “blood money” (under sharia, the relatives of a murdered Muslim can accept payment for legal vengeance in lieu of capital punishment for the perpetrator) that screened at Film Forum in 2006. Three years later, Farhadi won numerous awards, including the Silver Bear at the Berlinale, for About Elly, a tense, character-driven drama...
- 12/28/2011
- by Damon Smith
- Filmmaker Magazine - Blog
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