Do you really think you can return to Tehran? Last Thursday, on a roof of a building in Cannes, (Miyaneh, 64 years old) he answered with absolute tranquility to this question from El País. “Yes, why not?” Doesn’t you fear the risk it has assumed, because not only has a film been hidden, when it is prohibited, but can win? “It may sound strange to you, but the Iranian people are being played.” This Saturday, with the trophy in hand, the award said: “The most important thing is our country and achieve their freedom. Let us make that time together, a time when no one dares to tell us what we should wear, and what we should or should not do.”
At the beginning of the 21st century, Panahi was a prestigious director, with films such as The White Globe (1995) y The mirror (1997). In 2000 he won with The circle The Golden Lion of Venice. And at the same time his political profile began to be accentuated. With Offside (2006), in which he had the misadventures of the women of his country for going to football stadiums to see his favorite team, delved into the growing distance between his compatriots and the Ayatolas. Together with his wife and a fortnight of guests, at his home in Tehran: his crime, support Mir Hosein Musavi, the main opposition leader of the then President Mahmud Ahmadineyad. After several months in prison, and even start a hunger strike, he returned home to suffer house arrest. Hence This is not a movie (2011) was filmed on your floor, and explore your frustration for not shooting.
Thus began his career as a forbidden artist: Taxi (Gold bear in 2015), Three faces (2018) y Bears do not exist (2022), shot on the border with Türkiye. In all Panahi interprets himself or a character similar to him. And meanwhile, repression continued. In July 2022, the other great reprisal, Mohammad Rasooulof, was arrested. Panahi dedicated a post In his Instagram account and condemned the “constant repression” that Iranian artists suffered. After three days he approached the jail to worry about Rasooulof, and was also arrested and imprisoned. A week he was sentenced to six years in jail for the events of 2010. And both have dedicated their latest films to the experiences they suffered in their cells. Liberated, Rasoulof decided to flee to Germany and Panahi, who right now is just prohibited from filming, threw himself to film.
Talk about torturers and tortured, revenge and how they mark each person differently. The Iranian made the postproduction in France, returned home and now on the Costa Azul he has collected the parabienes for his work. “When you do a film, you first have to be satisfied with your life, at least I see it,” I told El País in Cannes. “Every movie, in turn, is a challenge, from the first question that I ask, which is: ‘Is it really necessary?” And about what he heard in jail, he pointed out: “There are people who had been there for years, I have fought. I stayed with a thought: that the day I finished this regime, we are able to overcome it without violence. That the violence ends with them.”
The filmmaker refuses to be pessimistic before the Islamist regime that governs in his nation: “I can’t, I should not. First, because I am a father. Second, because then he would be another defeated. And third, because he trusted Iranian women. Look like the torturer of A simple accident He doesn’t look at women in the face. They are the future and they already have the power to change. ”
In turn, his own family has been the first to suffer his legal problems, his 88 days of hunger strike in 2010 and his steps for prison. “My son lives outside, my daughter is there. How not to think about them? Well, we have built in the strength in the face of adversities.” And back to his future: “I already have a project underway. It is a script that I handled 20 years ago, and for a five years I tried to lift. Now I go for him, and yes, I will roll in Iran.”
