Latest news with #AbbasKiarostami
Free Malaysia Today
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- Free Malaysia Today
Iran silent as dissident director wins Cannes' top prize
Jafar Panahi has been banned from filmmaking since 2010 and jailed multiple times. (AP pic) TEHRAN : Iranian authorities offered no reaction today after dissident filmmaker Jafar Panahi won the Cannes Film Festival's top prize for his political drama. Panahi, 64, was awarded the Palme d'Or last night for 'It Was Just an Accident' – a film in which five Iranians confront a man they believe tortured them in prison. A story inspired by his own time in detention, it had led critics' polls throughout the week at Cannes. The win has so far been met with silence from Iran's government and ignored by the state broadcaster, which instead focused on a state-aligned 'Resistance' film festival. The conservative Fars news agency suggested the jury's choice was politically motivated, saying it was 'not uninfluenced by the political issues surrounding Jafar Panahi inside Iran'. Reformist newspapers Etemad, Shargh and Ham Mihan reported the win on their websites but did not feature it on their front pages, possibly due to the timing of the announcement. Panahi, who has been banned from filmmaking since 2010 and jailed multiple times, addressed the Cannes audience with a call for national unity. He confirmed plans to return to Iran immediately. Asked last night if he feared arrest, he said: 'Not at all. Tomorrow we are leaving.' This marks only the second time an Iranian director has won the Palme d'Or, after the late Abbas Kiarostami received the honour for 'Taste of Cherry' in 1997. Both directors faced bans throughout their careers.
Al Arabiya
25-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Al Arabiya
Panahi says ‘not at all' scared to return to Iran after Cannes win
Dissident Iranian director Jafar Panahi told AFP on Saturday that he was 'not at all' scared to return to Iran after winning the top film prize at the Cannes film festival. Asked if he was worried after scooping the prestigious Palme d'Or for 'It Was Just an Accident,' he replied: 'Not at all. Tomorrow we are leaving.' He said that the prize was 'not something for me.' 'It's something for all Iranian filmmakers who cannot work right now but we hope that all Iranian filmmakers will be able to work,' he told AFP. Panahi has been jailed twice before and was banned from making films for 20 years in 2010. Iran's state IRNA news agency reported on and hailed Panahi's award with a picture of him. 'The world's largest film festival made history for Iranian cinema,' it reported, recalling the first win for an Iranian at the festival in 1997 by Abbas Kiarostami. Like his previous films, Panahi shot 'It Was Just an Accident' in secret and he revealed earlier this week that his cast and team had been put under 'pressure.' Several members were called in for questioning by Iranian authorities including actress Hadis Pakbaten, he told a news conference. 'Once the film had been announced as being selected (for Cannes), we were put under pressure, we were threatened, we were questioned,' she told the media. 'At the beginning it was scary. I'm young and I was worried for my family.'
Washington Post
28-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Washington Post
‘Universal Language': A trilogy of Iranian-accented tales set in Canada
The quickest way I can sum up the slow-moving, weirdly touching cinematic oddity that is 'Universal Language' is to ask you to imagine what it would look like if Iran were in Canada. This is not as insane as it sounds. Well, it is, but stay with me. Matthew Rankin, a Manitoba-born, Montreal-based experimental filmmaker, so loves the Iranian New Wave movies of the 1970s and beyond — the films of Abbas Kiarostami, Mohsen and Samira Makhmalbaf, Jafar Panahi, and others — that he has ported their neorealist style, situations and language to the icebound terrain of a make-believe Winnipeg. All the men call one another 'Agha' here, a Farsi term of respect that extends behind the camera as well.
