But he couldn’t hide forever. The film’s final sequence takes place in the city, in broad daylight. With only a few days left in the shoot, Panahi took one of the greatest risks of his career and drove to Tehran. “Gradually, we brought the camera out of the car. We knew that once the camera came out of the car, the chance of us falling into danger was high, and eventually they would come for us,” he says.
Come they did: “We came to a spot where we left the crew, and we had to go get a shot from inside the car,” says Panahi. “We hadn’t even gone one or two kilometers on the way when they called and said, ‘They’ve raided the set and they’re saying you have to come back.’”
Officers apprehended the crew. Moments later, it happened again.
“We went and hid some equipment in the time we had before returning,” says the director. “We went back and saw 15 plainclothes officers had raided the work, searched all the guys and various things.”
Officers demanded Panahi reveal key information about the project. He tried to resist and refused to give the officers anything. But he was outnumbered. “What they did, after holding us in the street for four or five hours, was summon a few people to go for interrogation the next day,” he says. His crew was detained and ordered to no longer work with Panahi. Production came to a screeching halt.
“Finally, after a month, I went out one day with a smaller group and got the shots that were absolutely essential,” Panahi said. “And the work was finished.”
Panahi’s film—and subsequent sentence—comes at a pivotal time for Iran. In December, protests erupted nationwide after shopkeepers in Tehran went on strike. The government responded with a vicious crackdown. As of this week, more than 51,000 people have been arrested, according to the Human Rights Activists News Agency. Estimates of the number of people killed have varied, hindered by an internet shutdown. While the Iranian government has said that more than 3,000 are dead, some witnesses put the number at 10 times that.
“The regime wants everything to end in violence and they want to institutionalize violence in people,” Panahi told NPR last Thursday. He had recently found out that one of the cowriters for his film, Mehdi Mahmoudian, had been arrested in Iran. The two had met in prison in 2022, and they spent seven months together behind bars. Panahi learned of Mahmoudian’s arrest after he suddenly stopped responding to text messages. A broadcast on the news later confirmed his fears. “I cannot think straight,” Panahi told VF in a separate interview, translated by his interpreter, Sheida Dayani. “I am in the process of a very heavy mourning because of what has happened in my country. I am in shock, like all the other people. This doesn’t allow me to feel much.”