Jafar Panahi (Persian: جعفر پناهی; born 11 July 1960) is an Iranian film director, screenwriter, and film editor, commonly identified with the Iranian New Wave film movement. After several years of making short films and working as an assistant director for fellow Iranian film-maker Abbas Kiarostami, Panahi achieved international recognition with his feature film debut, The White Balloon (1995). The film won the Caméra d'Or at the 1995 Cannes Film Festival, the first major award won by an Iranian film at Cannes.Panahi was quickly recognized as one of the most influential film-makers in Iran. Although his films were often banned in his own country, he continued to receive international acclaim from film theorists and critics and has won numerous awards, including the Golden Leopard at the Locarno International Film Festival for The Mirror (1997), the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival for The Circle (2000), and the Silver Bear for Best Director at the Berlin Film Festival for Offside (2006 ). His films are known for their humanistic perspective on life in Iran, often focusing on the hardships of children, the impoverished, and women. Hamid Dabashi has written, "Panahi does not do as he is told — in fact he has made a successful career in not doing as he is told."After several years of conflict with the Iranian government over the content of his films (including several short-term arrests), Panahi was arrested in March 2010 along with his wife, daughter, and 15 friends and later charged with propaganda against the Iranian government. Despite support from filmmakers, film organizations, and human rights organizations from around the world, in December 2010 Panahi was sentenced to a six-year jail sentence and a 20-year ban on directing any movies, writing screenplays, giving any form of interview with Iranian or foreign media, or from leaving the country except for medical treatment or going to Hajj pilgrimage. Whilst awaiting the result of an appeal he made This Is Not a Film (2011), a documentary feature in the form of a video diary in spite of the legal ramifications of his arrest. It was smuggled out of Iran in a Flash-Drive hidden inside a cake and shown at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival. In February 2013 the 63rd Berlin International Film Festival showed Closed Curtain (Pardé) by Panahi and Kambuzia Partovi in competition; Panahi won the Silver Bear for Best Script. Panani's new film Taxi is scheduled to premiere in competition at the 65th Berlin International Film Festival.
I'm fed up with surreptitiously making everything in very confined spaces, and not having the freedom to work as I used to...It makes me feel sick thinking of all these projects I'd like to do, but I don't have the ability to make them.
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To tell you the truth, at some point in my career I couldn't see myself doing a movie like ' Closed Curtain', something that delves into the imagination of an artist - but with a completely different language. It's part of what my career has come to.
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I want you to put yourself in my shoes as a filmmaker who can't do anything else but make films, and doesn't want to do anything else. How much time do I have left? Do I have twenty years left to live? I cannot stay idle. I know this is what they want. They let me out of a small prison and released me to a much larger one.When I was in a small prison I knew there was nothing I could do there. Every movement was being watched. ..Now that I am so-called 'free', but in reality in a larger prison, I have to do something and cannot stay idle and let my life be wasted.
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[observation, 2014] I'm really optimistic about the future of Iranian cinema because of all these young and talented filmmakers...What makes me hopeful is this pool of young filmmakers can use all-digital cameras to make their own movies. There was a time when the government had a monopoly on all the filmmaking equipment. But right now you don't have to go to the government to make your films.
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Fact
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On December 20, 2010, Panahi was sentenced by the Revolutionary Court to six years in prison and barred for the next twenty years from film-making, political activity, traveling or giving interviews. Panahi's colleague Mohammad Rasoulof was also sentenced to six years in prison.
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Symbolic guest of honor of Cannes Film Festival in 2010.
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In February 2010 he was denied permission to leave Iran to participate in the panel discussion on 'Iranian Cinema: Present and Future. Expectations inside and outside of Iran' during the World Cinema Fund Day at the 60th Berlinale.
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