It is surely no coincidence that most prominently displayed amongst Iranian filmmaker Jafar Pahani’s DVD collection is a copy of Rodrigo Cortés’ Buried starring Ryan Reynolds. The story of a man trapped against his will and being slowly suffocated by his surroundings, the similarities between the plot of Buried and the real life predicament of Pahani are all too readily apparent. Director of critically acclaimed films such as The Circle and Offside – both of which are banned in Iran — Pahani was found guilty by an Iranian court of creating “propaganda against the regime”, forcing him to spend most of 2011 languishing in his Tehran apartment under house arrest as he awaits the results of a court appeal against a six year jail term and twenty year media ban. Not only does the ban prohibit him from giving interviews or leaving the country, but also from engaging in the writing or directing of a film.
In brave defiance of the ban – an act that may very well have contributed to the rejection of his appeal just a few weeks ago – Panahi collaborated with another Iranian filmmaker named Mojbata Mirtahmasb (also now imprisoned) on a documentary project that is sardonically, or perhaps cautiously, entitled This Is Not A Film. Documenting a day in Panahi’s life, we watch as he attempts to strike some small, perhaps foolhardy blow against a dictatorial system that seeks to silence his voice — and the voice of countless others — in an admirable work of life affirming, art affirming, freedom affirming creative expression.
The events depicted in the seventy-five minute film are of no particular importance; were it not for the fact that their very existence were an act of searing civil disobedience, they might even be considered mundane. Panahi eats his breakfast, feeds the family pet — an adventurous Iguana named Igi — and speaks to his lawyer on the telephone (whose prognosis for his future is grim). Soon Mirtahmasb arrives and they go about their task, a project born from a combination of frustrated boredom and the desire to rebel. Mapping the outline of a small room with masking tape on the living room floor, Mirtahmasb shoots Panahi reading from his most recent script; the film Panahi would have made before he was arrested by government officials. Amidst stoppages and jokes, Panahi muses about various pictures he’d wanted to direct, only to have them shot down in the developmental stages by stringent censors.
As the day continues, Panahi watches clips from his earlier movies’ Crimson Gold and The Circle, recounting the way in which the real world influenced what you see in the films. In a similar fashion, the spectre of oppression hangs heavily over This Is Not A Film. Even as the two men work, gunfire and sirens can be head out the window in the distance. A scene that should be funny – Panahi awkwardly telling his neighbour he doesn’t want to dog-sit her incessantly yapping pet – is made tragic by his inability to venture beyond the threshold of his doorway.
The fates of Panahi and Mirtahmasb are not anomalies. While the sentence of ninety lashes for actress Marzieh Vafamehr’s for appearing without a headscarf in the Australian produced My Tehran for Sale was recently overturned following international media attention, many others, including Panahi and Mirtahmasb, still remain unfairly imprisoned. This Is Not A Film – which had to smuggled out of Iran on a USB drive baked inside of a cake – is an important, courageous cry for justice that deserves to be heard.
Please help spread the word about the plight of Iranian filmmakers. For more information visit Amnesty International.
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