Political disgruntled director
Jaffer Panahi never becomes a political filmmaker. Iranian director says, “In my definition, a political filmmaker defends ideology where good follows it and bad opposes it.” “My films, even those who behave badly, are shaped by the system, not personal choice,” they tell DW.
But for more than a decade, Panahi has little option. After his support for opposition Green Movement Protests, what is the 20 -year ban on Filming and International Travel in 2010, “The White Balloon” and “The Circle” director, director of “The White Balloon” and “The Circle”. This did not stop them.
Over the years, he discovered new ways to shoot, edit and smuggle his films – to use a car in a mobile studio (“taxi”, who won a golden beer in 2015 Berlin) in a film set a film from his live room (“it’s not a film”) from his live room (“it’s not a film”).
This week, Panahi stepped back into the spotlight – not through smuggled footage or video calls, but personally. For the first time in two decades, now the 64 -year -old filmmaker returned to the Cannes Film Festival to present his latest feature, “Its Just a Accident”, premiered in the competition for an emotional 8 -minute standing ovation.
From jail to Palais
The ear road is nothing but smooth. In July 2022, Panahi was arrested again and expanded to Tehran’s infamous Evin Jail. After about seven months and a hunger strike, he was released in February 2023. In a surprising legal victory, the Supreme Court of Iran overturned his original 2010 sentence. The Panahi was legally independent, but artisticly still tied to a system that he refuses to present. “To make a film officially in Iran, you have to present your script to the Ministry of Islamic Guidance for approval,” he tells DW. “This is something that I can’t do. I made another Clendstine film again.”
That film, “It was just an accident,” can be the most direct confrontation of Panahi with state violence and repression. The characteristic of female characters, which was secretly shot and unveiled in disregard of Iran’s hijab law, tells the story of a group of pre-prisoners, believing that you have found the man who has tortured him and should decide what is to take an accurate revenge. Tot, 24-hour drama appears like a psychological thriller.
Stylistic, “it was just an accident” is a sharp break from the more vested, and a large-scale self-reliant work is created and its official state, but the plot is strongly autobiographical.
A thriller who makes deep cuts
The film opens with the tragedy of a bear, killing a man’s accidental a dog with her car-and spirals, a dog, which is slowly burning with a state-approved crethropy. Wahid (legitimate mobile), a mechanic, who is asked to repair the damaged car, thinks that he recognizes the owner as Aghbal, aka Peg-Lag, as a former torturer. He kidnaps her, planning to make her alive in the desert. But he does not believe that he has found the right man, because he was blindfolded during his intern. Panahi recalls his time in jail, “They used to blindfold us by blindfolding us or when we left our cells.” “Only in the toilet you can remove the blindfold.”
In search of Rasurance, the mechanic reaches the fellow prisoners for confirmation. Soon Wahid’s van is packed with the victims who are demanding a revenge from the person who did nothing but raising voice against the authorities. There is a bride (Hadith Pakbeton), who leaves her marriage with her wedding photographer and former prisoner Shiva (Maryam Afshari), after the man who raped and tortured. Hamid (Mohammad Ali Alice Meher) is, a man became so fierce by trauma and his experience that he does not care if the man he has caught is the right man; He only wants vengeance. “Even dead, they are a crisis on humanity,” he says about all the intelligence officials serving under governance.
As the group argues on Vengian vs. non-violence, along with the cruel details of beating and torture, they tolerate, the panahi inserts moments of humor and touching moments of absurd. The hostagers cross the path with the family of Aghbal, including heavy pregnant wives, and find the Amelves to take a sudden birth to the hospital. Later, as the tradition in Iran, Wahid is the head of a bakery to buy all pastries.
“All thesis characters that you see in this film were inspired by conversation that people were in jail, people told me about violence and cruelty of the Iranian government, violence that has now been over four decades,” says Panahi. “In a way, I am not the one who has made this film. It is an Islamic Republic that has made this film, because they have put me in jail. Maybe if they want to stop us such a destroyer, they should stop putting them in jail.”
Film production as the only option
Despite the career defined by resistance, Panahi insisted that he is doing only one thing that he knows. “During my 20 -year ban, even my closest friends had left that I would ever make films,” he said in the Cannes Conference “It was just an accident.”
“But those who know me know that I cannot change a lightball. I don’t know how to do any way except films”.
He is a single-mind dedication that is also going to his lowest.
“I remember that before I punished me with a very heavy punishment of 20 years, I was banned from making films and traveling, and I thought: ‘What will I do now?” For a while, I was real upset, “He remembers.” Then I went to my window, I saw and I saw the thesis beautiful clouds in the sky. I found my camera immediately. I thought: ‘It’s nothing that can take away from me, I can still take pictures of clouds.’ Those pictures were later displayed at the Center Pompido in Paris … There is no way to stop me from making films.
No exile, no migration
While many Iranian filmmaker Oscar-namined “The Seed of the Sacred Figure”, a close friend of Panahi, has run into exile, Mohammad Rasolof, a close friend of Panahi, who now lives in Berlin-Panahi, has no plans to join him. “I am unable to adjust other society completely,” hey says. “I had to stay in Paris for post-production for three and a half months, and I thought I was leaving.”
In Iran, he explained, filming is a communal function of doodle and trust. “At 2 o’clock, I can call a colleague and say: ‘That shot should be long.” And he will join me and we will work all night.
Therefore, even after the victory of her Cannes, Panahi wants to return home. “As soon as I complete my work here, I will go back to Iran the next day. And I will ask myself: What is going to happen my next film?”
Edited by: Branda Has
