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Friday, December 05, 2025
Iran Sentences Dissident Director Jafar Panahi to Prison in Abstentia
www.hollywoodreporter.com: Iran has sentenced the Palme d’Or-winning director Jafar Panahi to one year in prison in absentia, his lawyer told the Agence France-Press news service on Monday.
2 comments:
JFleck
said...
It takes a strong voice to stand up to a government who tries to control what you say and how you say it. There will always be someone who will not like what you are saying if you are being critical but trying to silence what you are doing is a problem. Being brave enough to do a festival tour while being banned from his home. Making people more aware of the atrocities that have taken place by a government that tries to keep anything that will not look good for them silent and out of focus for the majority of people is a great thing but it also puts a target on your back. Despite this target, Panahi has continued to make and direct films that puts his well being at risk. It is a bold statement and course of action but it is once that needs to be done to bring these things to light
Prior to this article, I had never heard of Jafar Panahi, but I have heard of the Iranian government’s attempts to silence artists in modern times. He is a part of the Iranian New Wave movement (like Soheil Parsa), which is inspired by Italian Neorealism and the French New Wave, the latter of which I am a strong fan of. Panahi’s films seem to be far reaching and well awarded. He was also previously sentenced to six years in 2010 for supporting anti-government propaganda, but released after two months. In addition, there was a 20 year ban on him writing screenplays or directing movies (seemingly unenforced). Panahi does tend to rebel against that which is the expectation in regard to gender, wealth, and age in his films pretty consistently. His work started well post Iranian Revolution in 1995, and his first film won big, being the first Iranian film to win the Camera d’or award at the Cannes Film Festival.
2 comments:
It takes a strong voice to stand up to a government who tries to control what you say and how you say it. There will always be someone who will not like what you are saying if you are being critical but trying to silence what you are doing is a problem. Being brave enough to do a festival tour while being banned from his home. Making people more aware of the atrocities that have taken place by a government that tries to keep anything that will not look good for them silent and out of focus for the majority of people is a great thing but it also puts a target on your back. Despite this target, Panahi has continued to make and direct films that puts his well being at risk. It is a bold statement and course of action but it is once that needs to be done to bring these things to light
Prior to this article, I had never heard of Jafar Panahi, but I have heard of the Iranian government’s attempts to silence artists in modern times. He is a part of the Iranian New Wave movement (like Soheil Parsa), which is inspired by Italian Neorealism and the French New Wave, the latter of which I am a strong fan of. Panahi’s films seem to be far reaching and well awarded. He was also previously sentenced to six years in 2010 for supporting anti-government propaganda, but released after two months. In addition, there was a 20 year ban on him writing screenplays or directing movies (seemingly unenforced). Panahi does tend to rebel against that which is the expectation in regard to gender, wealth, and age in his films pretty consistently. His work started well post Iranian Revolution in 1995, and his first film won big, being the first Iranian film to win the Camera d’or award at the Cannes Film Festival.
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