All posts tagged: Jafar Panahi

Donald Trump’s Plea for Asylum for Iranian Soccer Is Basically Offside

Donald Trump’s Plea for Asylum for Iranian Soccer Is Basically Offside

Published by Daniella Wilson

Five young Iranian women with a passion for the country’s soccer program desperately need backing from military-minded authority figures to avoid retribution, all against the backdrop of a World Cup qualifier. It sounds a lot like what President Donald Trump just did in pressuring the Australian prime minister to grant asylum for five members of Iran’s women’s World Cup team. But it also is pretty much the logline for Offside, Jafar Panahi’s soccer-themed Farsi-language classic that debuted at Berlin 20 years ago last month and that set the stage for his current powerhouse It Was Just an Accident. Given that his taste in movies runs different from Berlinale favorites, Trump is unlikely to have seen the one-time Silver Bear winner. But Offside nonetheless provides a curious foretelling to what has played out in real time this week. In Panahi’s dissident gem, five young women defy Iran’s ban on women attending sporting events by dressing as men and trying to sneak into Tehran’s Azadi Stadium for an Iran-Bahrain World Cup qualifying match in 2005. Their effort is largely …

Jafar Panahi, Independent Iranian Directors Call out State Violence

Jafar Panahi, Independent Iranian Directors Call out State Violence

Published by Daniella Wilson

Oscar-nominated Iranian director Jafar Panahi (It Was Just an Accident) used a rare public appearance at the Berlin Film Festival to denounce what he described as an “unbelievable crime” unfolding in his home country, as independent filmmakers mounted a parallel campaign to spotlight artists killed and detained in a sweeping crackdown by the Islamic Republic. In an on-stage discussion with The Hollywood Reporter’s European Bureau Chief Scott Roxborough in Berlin on Thursday, Panahi said the festival wanted to retroactively present him with the Berlinale Golden Bear honor he won in 2015 for Taxi [the director, under a travel ban at the time, was unable to attend in person]. He said he declined, wanting to keep attention fixed on the Iranian regime’s violent repression of protestors, which has resulted in tens of thousands of deaths. “They wanted to give me the Golden Bear I had won for Taxi, and I refused it, because of the situation in Iran,” Panahi said. “An unbelievable crime has happened. Mass murder has happened. People are not even allowed to mourn …

European Film Award Winners

European Film Award Winners

Published by Daniella Wilson

The European Film Awards (EFA), the top pan-European cinema honor, has kicked off in Berlin. You can check out the livestream of the awards ceremony here. For the first time, the EFAs are being held mid-January, smack in the middle of awards season, in an attempt to position the event as a harbinger for the Baftas and the Oscars and generate buzz around European contenders. And, indeed, all of this year’s EFA Best Film nominees are Oscar contenders: Joachim Trier‘s Norwegian melodrama Sentimental Value, Jafar Panahi‘s Palme d’Or winning Iranian/French thriller It Was Just an Accident, Olivier Laxe’s post-apocalyptic road movie Sirāt, Mascha Schilinski’s multi-generational German period film Sound of Falling, and Kaouther Ben Hania’s harrowing Gaza drama The Voice of Hind Rajab. In the director’s race, Laxe, Panahi, Trier and Schilinski will be going up against Yorgos Lanthimos, nominated for the Emma Stone/Jessie Plemons starrer Bugonia. Trier’s Sentimental Value has a slight edge in the overall nominations, with 5 noms across the top 5 categories. Laxe’s Sirāt is right behind it with 4 noms, for best feature, director, actor and screenplay, followed by It Was Just an Accident and Sound of Falling, with 3 noms each. …

Matthijs Wouter Knol on the European Academy’s Awards Season Pivot

Matthijs Wouter Knol on the European Academy’s Awards Season Pivot

Published by Daniella Wilson

This year’s awards race has seen an unprecedented surge for European talent with several films from continental auteurs — including Joachim Trier’s Sentimental Value, Oliver Laxe’s Sirat, and Jafar Panahi’s It Was Just an Accident (a French-Iranian production from the Iranian director) — heading into the final lap as Oscar favorites. No longer relegated to the sidelines of the international circuit, European cinema is front and center in the conversation, regularly appearing on both Golden Globe and Academy Award shortlists. This year, the European Film Academy has decided to lean into this momentum with a bold strategic pivot. By shifting their premium honors, the European Film Awards (EFAs) from December to January (the 38th European Film Awards are in Berlin on Saturday), they are slotting European films directly within the global awards window, hoping to capitalize on the promotional machinery that traditionally favors Hollywood. Knol spoke to THR about the strategic calendar shift, his hopes for a European star system, and why (unlike, say, the Golden Globes) there will be plenty of politics on stage …

Jafar Panahi Iran protests, Returning Prison Come Out New Script

Jafar Panahi Iran protests, Returning Prison Come Out New Script

Published by Daniella Wilson

Dissident filmmaker Jafar Panahi says anti-government protests sweeping Iran are inevitable as the country’s authoritarian regime is crumbling on many fronts. “We are dealing with a state that has fallen in all possible aspects. It has fallen politically, economically, environmentally and ideologically and from the point of view of foreign policy. Every which way you look at it, it has fallen,” Panahi told a Palm Springs International Film Festival panel of international directors vying for the Academy Award for best international feature film that was moderated by Kevin Cassidy, international news editor at The Hollywood Reporter. Panahi is currently on an international Oscar campaign to promote It Was Just an Accident, his Palme d’Or winner in Cannes. He argued that Iran’s clerical establishment remains in power because of its use of brutal and now bloody repression to end a popular uprising. “Because it is using force, it is still in place. If [the protests] didn’t happen today, it would have happened soon. And my sense is that people have decided what they want,” Panahi added. He …

Jafar Panahi’s Prison Sentence Appeal Sets Hearing Date in Iran

Jafar Panahi’s Prison Sentence Appeal Sets Hearing Date in Iran

Published by Daniella Wilson

Palme d’Or-winning director Jafar Panahi has set a hearing date in Iran after filing an appeal against his sentencing for “propaganda activities against the regime” by the Tehran Revolutionary Court. On Dec. 1, the dissident Iranian filmmaker was handed a one-year prison sentence in absentia and a two-year travel ban, as well as a ban on membership in political and social groups or factions. Panahi’s lawyer, Mostafa Nili, wrote on social media Friday: “After appealing against the one-year prison sentence for propaganda activities against the regime of Mr. Jafar Panahi, Branch 26 of the Tehran Revolutionary Court has set the hearing date for January 4, 2026.” His lawyer did not immediately make clear whether the director will be in attendance at the Jan. 4 hearing. Panahi’s latest legal and political run-in with Iranian authorities follows him having won the top prize in Cannes last year for It Was Just an Accident, a thriller that follows an ex-political prisoner who kidnaps a man he believes to be his torturer and then debates, with other dissidents, whether to …