Francine Prose on the Work of Imprisoned Iranian Filmmaker Jafar Panahi for the New York Review of Books
Iranian director Jafar Panahi at the 56th Berlinale 2006, winner of the Silver Bear for his film Offside. Photo by Siebbi, CC BY 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons
After being banned from making films for 20 years, Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi made This Is Not a Film while under house arrest. “We see him talking to his lawyer on the phone; watching TV; feeding his daughter’s pet iguana, Iggy; politely turning down invitations; and acting out a movie he wants to make about an isolated young woman,” writes Francine Prose, distinguished writer in residence, for the New York Review of Books. Tracing Panahi’s work through the decades, Prose draws attention to his intermixture of fiction and documentary, his dedication to the depiction of the lives of Iranian women, and his now regular appearances as a character in his own films, where he appears “genial, kindly, easily amused, remarkably easygoing—an unlikely candidate for an enemy of the state.” Now imprisoned as his newest film debuts in New York, sick with Covid and receiving “intentionally inadequate medical care,” Prose sees Panahi’s films as “a testament to the determination, perseverance, and courage required to keep making art, no matter what.”
Post Date: 10-18-2022
Post Date: 10-18-2022