Iranian movie night: Crimson Gold (Jafar Panahi, 2003)

Sunday 22 January 2023, Iranian movie night: Crimson Gold, directed by Jafar Panahi, written by Abbas Kiarostami, 2003, 95 minutes. In Farsi with English subtitles. Doors open at 20:00, film starts at 20:30.

The film depicts an impoverished pizza delivery man’s failed attempt to rob a jewelry store and the events that drove him to his crime. The story is based on real events that Panahi first heard about when Kiarostami told him the story while they were stuck in a traffic jam on their way to one of Kiarostami’s photographic exhibits. Panahi was extremely moved by the story and Kiarostami agreed to write the script for him to direct. Panahi submitted the film to the Cannes Film Festival without being granted a permit from the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance. Panahi had applied for the permit but the Ministry demanded several cuts be made to the film. Panahi refused and submitted the film anyway. Like The Circle, Crimson Gold was banned in Iran.
In December 2010, Jafar Panahi has been sentenced to a six-year jail sentence and a 20-year ban on directing any films, writing screenplays, giving any form of interview with Iranian or foreign media and from leaving the country. He was prosecuted for attempting “to commit crimes against the country’s national security and propaganda against the Islamic Republic”. In October 2011, a court in Tehran upheld Panahi’s sentence and ban. Following the decision, Panahi was placed under house arrest. He had since been allowed to move more freely but he couldn’t travel outside Iran.
End 2022, as the revolt is spreading all around Iran following Mahsa Amini’s death, a new Panahi film is released, No Bears, secretly shot in a mountain village near by the Turkish border. Panahi finished his film shortly before getting arrested in July 2022 when he went to the prosecutor’s office to follow up on the situation of other film-makers, Mohammad Rasoulof and Mostafa Aleahmad. He was the third director detained in less than a week.

Film night at Joe’s Garage, cozy cinema! Free entrance. You want to screen a movie, let us know: joe [at] lists [dot] squat [dot] net

Iranian Movie night: The Circle (2000)

jafar_panahi_the_circleSunday March 8th 2015, Iranian Movie night: The Circle by Jafar Panahi (2000, 90 minutes). In Persian with English subtitles. Door opens at 8pm, film begins at 9pm. Free admission.

The Circle (Farsi: دایره‎) is a 2000 drama film by Iranian independent filmmaker Jafar Panahi that criticizes the treatment of women in Iran. The film has won several awards, including the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival in 2000, but it is banned in Iran.

The Circle offers a look at the world of seven women in Iran, searching for themselves while struggling with everyday oppression. The film does not have a central protagonist: instead, it is constructed around a sequence of short interconnecting stories that illustrate the everyday challenges women face in Iran. Each story intersects, but none is complete, leaving the viewer to imagine both the background and the ending. All the actors are amateurs, except Fereshteh Sadre Orafaee who plays Pari, and Fatemeh Naghavi, who plays the mother abandoning her daughter.[2] Throughout the movie, Panahi focuses on the little rules symbolizing difficulties of life for Iranian women, such as the need to wear a chador under certain circumstances, or not being allowed to travel alone. He frequently uses contrast to illustrate both happiness and misery in contemporary Tehran […Lees verder]