By AFP
Julianne Moore led a flash-mob protest on the Venice purple carpet on Friday in assist of filmmakers detained all over the world, because the competition premiered the brand new film from imprisoned Iranian director Jafar Panahi.
Panahi, who gained the highest prize Golden Lion in Venice in 2000, was jailed in July together with two different filmmakers within the newest crackdown on Iranian civil society.
Moore, who’s main the jury at this yr’s competition, was joined for the protest by dozens of different artists, together with British director Sally Potter and final yr’s Golden Lion winner, France’s Audrey Diwan.
They held posters that additionally highlighted the detention of Myanmar filmmaker Ma Aeint and Turkish producer Cigdem Mater.
Despite years of makes an attempt to silence him, Panahi’s new movie “No Bears” reveals that he has misplaced none of his searing political critique and wry sense of humour.
The movie is partly centered on Iranians in Turkey, making an attempt desperately to to migrate to Europe.
ALSO READ | Iran film-maker Jafar Panahi convicted in propaganda case, to serve six-year sentence
But it additionally follows Panahi himself in a fictionalised model of his actual life, as he struggles to make the movie from throughout the border in Iran, which he was already banned from leaving.
One of the movie’s stars, Mina Kavani, instructed reporters in Venice she was impressed by his focus, regardless of having to direct by cellphone and web.
“He was in such concentration, he had such perfectionism — as an actress, I couldn’t let myself get sentimental,” stated Kavani, who lives in exile in France.
“All that counted for him was cinema. He just wanted to make his movie. I thought: ‘I know now why he’s Mr Panahi.'”
– ‘Survival’ –
In 2010, Panahi was sentenced to 6 years in jail for “propaganda against the system” following his assist for anti-government protests.
As can usually occur in Iran, the sentence was by no means carried out however hung over him — and was solely enacted in July when he went to investigate about two different filmmakers, Mohammad Rasoulof and Mostafa Aleahmad, who had simply been arrested.
Panahi and Rasoulof issued a defiant assertion through the Venice organisers final week, vowing to proceed making artwork.
“The history of Iranian cinema witnesses the constant and active presence of independent directors who have struggled to push back censorship and to ensure the survival of this art,” they wrote.
Panahi has gained the highest prizes in Venice (for 2000’s “The Circle”) and Berlin (2015’s “Taxi”), in addition to finest screenplay at Cannes (2018’s “Three Faces”) — however was unable to simply accept both of the final two prizes in individual.
The crackdown on civil society has worsened even additional beneath President Ebrahim Raisi, an ultra-conservative former judiciary chief who got here to energy final yr.
ALSO READ | ‘We should inform higher tales than the tyrants’: Revisiting Salman Rushdie’s speech months earlier than deadly assault on him
Yet Iran’s impartial filmmakers proceed to punch above their weight, regardless of the stress.
A second Iranian movie is competing for the Golden Lion this week — “Beyond the Walls” by Vahid Jalivand — a grim take a look at Iran’s safety state and people trapped inside it.
Jalivand was cautious in his phrases at a press convention on Thursday, saying “a balance between the two sides” was wanted in Iran right now.
“In this movie the hero of the movie is a security official himself. We have unfortunately reached a perspective where it is totally bipolar,” he instructed reporters.
“If we can create the sense of brotherhood, dialogue will become much easier, there will be less violence. This is my true belief and I would still believe this even if I were living in Europe or the United States.”
Julianne Moore led a flash-mob protest on the Venice purple carpet on Friday in assist of filmmakers detained all over the world, because the competition premiered the brand new film from imprisoned Iranian director Jafar Panahi.
Panahi, who gained the highest prize Golden Lion in Venice in 2000, was jailed in July together with two different filmmakers within the newest crackdown on Iranian civil society.
Moore, who’s main the jury at this yr’s competition, was joined for the protest by dozens of different artists, together with British director Sally Potter and final yr’s Golden Lion winner, France’s Audrey Diwan.
They held posters that additionally highlighted the detention of Myanmar filmmaker Ma Aeint and Turkish producer Cigdem Mater.
Despite years of makes an attempt to silence him, Panahi’s new movie “No Bears” reveals that he has misplaced none of his searing political critique and wry sense of humour.
The movie is partly centered on Iranians in Turkey, making an attempt desperately to to migrate to Europe.
ALSO READ | Iran film-maker Jafar Panahi convicted in propaganda case, to serve six-year sentence
But it additionally follows Panahi himself in a fictionalised model of his actual life, as he struggles to make the movie from throughout the border in Iran, which he was already banned from leaving.
One of the movie’s stars, Mina Kavani, instructed reporters in Venice she was impressed by his focus, regardless of having to direct by cellphone and web.
“He was in such concentration, he had such perfectionism — as an actress, I couldn’t let myself get sentimental,” stated Kavani, who lives in exile in France.
“All that counted for him was cinema. He just wanted to make his movie. I thought: ‘I know now why he’s Mr Panahi.'”
– ‘Survival’ –
In 2010, Panahi was sentenced to 6 years in jail for “propaganda against the system” following his assist for anti-government protests.
As can usually occur in Iran, the sentence was by no means carried out however hung over him — and was solely enacted in July when he went to investigate about two different filmmakers, Mohammad Rasoulof and Mostafa Aleahmad, who had simply been arrested.
Panahi and Rasoulof issued a defiant assertion through the Venice organisers final week, vowing to proceed making artwork.
“The history of Iranian cinema witnesses the constant and active presence of independent directors who have struggled to push back censorship and to ensure the survival of this art,” they wrote.
Panahi has gained the highest prizes in Venice (for 2000’s “The Circle”) and Berlin (2015’s “Taxi”), in addition to finest screenplay at Cannes (2018’s “Three Faces”) — however was unable to simply accept both of the final two prizes in individual.
The crackdown on civil society has worsened even additional beneath President Ebrahim Raisi, an ultra-conservative former judiciary chief who got here to energy final yr.
ALSO READ | ‘We should inform higher tales than the tyrants’: Revisiting Salman Rushdie’s speech months earlier than deadly assault on him
Yet Iran’s impartial filmmakers proceed to punch above their weight, regardless of the stress.
A second Iranian movie is competing for the Golden Lion this week — “Beyond the Walls” by Vahid Jalivand — a grim take a look at Iran’s safety state and people trapped inside it.
Jalivand was cautious in his phrases at a press convention on Thursday, saying “a balance between the two sides” was wanted in Iran right now.
“In this movie the hero of the movie is a security official himself. We have unfortunately reached a perspective where it is totally bipolar,” he instructed reporters.
“If we can create the sense of brotherhood, dialogue will become much easier, there will be less violence. This is my true belief and I would still believe this even if I were living in Europe or the United States.”
