Artist Profile
Jafar Panahi
Iran
Current Status: Arrested
UPDATE: On July 11, 2022, Jafar Panahi was arrested while visiting fellow filmmaker, Mohammad Rasoulof, who had been detained by Iranian government officials. Panahi was accused of "inciting unrest and [comprising] the security of society" in a condemnation of his public plea for the government to end violence against protesters. He is the third Iranian filmmaker to have been arrested over the past week, marking a steady targeting of artists and tightening of restrictions blocking dissent in the country.
Jafar Panahi is an Iranian filmmaker, screenwriter, director and editor, known for his critically-acclaimed films depicting the realities of Iranian society. Over the past several decades, he has become an influential voice against the censorship of art and films in Iran, making multiple films while under house arrest. He is currently subject to a 20-year ban on writing scripts, directing films, giving interviews, or leaving the country.
Panahi’s first foray into the world of film came at the age of 10, when he got his hands on an 8mm camera and began experimenting with filmmaking. At age 12, eager to go to the cinema, he began working after school so he could afford to buy tickets. From 1980-1982, when Panahi was XX, he was an army cinematographer, and he eventually made a documentary of his experience at war. After his military service, he attended the College of Cinema and TV in Tehran to study filmmaking, and launched his career by making short documentary films for Iranian television.
A humanistic filmmaker who rose to prominence within the Iranian New Wave movement, Panahi’s films are known for their mix of documentary-style realism and allegorical poetry to depict the social issues that plague Iranian society. He focuses particularly on vulnerable groups, highlighting the plight of women, children and the disabled in Iran and the social, political and economic hurdles they face.
Panahi’s films are firmly grounded in reality and are capable of evoking humanitarian instincts in an unsentimental yet intellectually stimulating fashion. In a 2001 interview for Senses of Cinema magazine, he explained, “The Iranian cinema treats social subjects. Because you’re showing social problems, you want to be more realistic and give the actual, real aesthetics of the situation. If the audience feels the same as what they see, then they would be more sympathetic. Because you’re talking about the humanitarian aspects of things, it will touch your heart. We talk about small events or small things, but it’s very deep and it’s very wide – things that are happening in life. According to this mode, it has a poetic way and an artistic way. This may be one of the differences between Iranian movies and the movies of other countries: humanitarian events interpreted in a poetic and artistic way.”
A favorite among film theorists and critics, Panahi’s films have won high acclaim at international film festivals such as the Cannes Film Festival and the Berlin Film Festival. The White Balloon, Panahi’s first feature film telling the story of a young girl’s wish to buy a lucky goldfish before the Iranian New Year, won the coveted Prix de la Camera d’Or at Cannes in 1996. Taxi, a documentary-style portrait of Tehran depicted through the point of view of a taxi, driven by Panahi himself, also won the Golden Bear Award in Berlin in 2015. Despite his international acclaim, Panahi’s intentional and pointed portrayals and revelations on the state of Iranian society would cause him to become a target of repression. As an outspoken filmmaker with a critical eye, Panahi has had numerous run-ins with the law since 2001. In 2010, tensions came to a head when Panahi was arrested for making a documentary portraying the social unrest that followed President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s widely disputed reelection in 2009. Following international outcry over his detention Panahi was soon released on bail. Despite this victory, the director was convicted seven months later and charged with “intent to commit crimes threatening national security and endorsing propaganda against the Islamic Republic.”
Even though he garnered immense global support from filmmakers, film organizations, and human rights organizations, Panahi was sentenced to six years in prison by the Islamic Revolutionary Court in December of 2010. In addition to a prison sentence, Panahi also received a 20-year ban on directing any movies, writing screenplays, giving interviews with Iranian or foreign media, or leaving the country with the exception of medical treatment or making the Hajj pilgrimage. The sentence was eventually modified to be served under house arrest during which time Panahi defiantly disobeyed the ruling and made three films.
One of the films he made under house arrest was a documentary feature poignantly named This is Not a Film, which covers Panahi’s experience with his court case. In an incredible feat, the film was smuggled out of Iran on a USB drive stored in a cake and screened as a surprise entry at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival. In 2012, while under house arrest, Panahi also jointly received the European Parliament’s Sakharov Prize with Nasrin Sotoudeh, an Iranian human rights lawyer known for representing imprisoned Iranian opposition activists. The duo were described as “a woman and a man who have not been bowed by fear and intimidation and who have decided to put the fate of their country before their own."
Today Panahi is still banned from filmmaking or leaving Iran, though he continues to covertly create films and support the fight for human rights and freedom of expression in Iran.
Panahi has spoken candidly on how this ongoing condition of censorship has impacted him both creatively and emotionally. “In prison, I had some peace of mind because I couldn’t do anything. I was limited to the confines of the prison, but when you’re out and you’re not allowed to work, it’s like you’re in a larger prison. Different conditions and situations, but you still feel that you’re imprisoned because of your inability to work. For a long time, I was part of society and could make socially committed and realistic movies, but now I feel isolated and can’t work the way I used to work. So I resorted to my imagination and whatever happened, it just happens in my imagination," Panahi in an interview with Filmmaker Magazine in 2014.
In March 2021, the director secretly recorded a message of support for Nasrin Sotoudeh, his 2012 Sakharov Prize co-winner, who was featured in Panahi’s “Taxi” film and remained in prison after being arrested by the Iranian government in 2018. The debut film of Panahi’s son, Panah Panahi, entitled Hit the Road, was also just screened at The 59th New York Film Festival. Panahi continues to be a visionary filmmaker who uses film as a vessel to explore the nuanced reality of Iranian society and refuses to be silenced.
By Chaitanya Venkateswaran, February 2021. Chaitanya is a student at American University studying International Studies and Economics. She hopes to work at the intersection of social justice, economic growth and international development.