by David Hudson
"Panahi, an outspoken supporter of Iran's opposition green movement, was convicted of gathering, colluding and propaganda against the regime," reports Saeed Kamali Dehghan. "Hamid Dabashi, a professor of Iranian studies at Columbia university, told the Guardian the sentence showed Iran's leaders could not tolerate the arts. 'This is a catastrophe for Iran's cinema,' he said. 'Panahi is now exactly in the most creative phase of his life and by silencing him at this sensitive time, they are killing his art and talent. Iran is sending a clear message by this sentence that they don't have any tolerance and can't bear arts, philosophy or anything like that. This is a sentence against the whole culture of Iran. They want the artists to sit at their houses and stop creating art. This is a catastrophe for a whole nation."
Gheirat has announced that she will appeal this decision, so we do have some hope that this incredibly harsh sentence will not stand. Panahi was one of several mourners who'd gathered near the grave of Neda Agha-Soltan in a Tehran cemetery who were arrested in July 2009. So, too, was filmmaker Muhammad Rasoulof, who has also been sentenced to six years today. When Panahi was released that summer, his passport was revoked and he was forbidden to leave the country. In March of this year, he was arrested again because, as the Iranian culture minister put it, he "was making a film against the regime and it was about the events that followed election." Throughout the ordeal, prominent filmmakers, film societies and festivals formally protested Panahi's detainment, and finally, in May, he was released on bail.
The speech he delivered during his hearing in November has been widely cited and quoted, and you can read it in full at Current Conflicts. Here's just a bit: "You are putting me on trial for making a film that, at the time of our arrest, was only 30 percent shot. You must have heard that the famous creed, 'There is no god, except Allah,' turns into blasphemy if you only say the first part and omit the second part. In the same vein, how can you establish that a crime has been committed by looking at 30 percent of the rushes for a film that has not been edited yet?... I, Jafar Panahi, declare once again that I am an Iranian, I am staying in my country and I like to work in my own country. I love my country, I have paid a price for this love too, and I am willing to pay again if necessary. I have yet another declaration to add to the first one. As shown in my films, I declare that I believe in the right of 'the other' to be different, I believe in mutual understanding and respect, as well as in tolerance; the tolerance that forbid me from judgment and hatred. I don't hate anybody, not even my interrogators."
Earlier this month, TIFF Cinematheque ran a retrospective of Panahi's work: "With five critically acclaimed and copiously awarded features to his name, Panahi is one of the major figures of the New Iranian cinema; once the protégé to Abbas Kiarostami, Panahi has forged a style and path all is own. His cohesive body of work owes much to Italian neo-realism, with his documentary style and preference for mostly non-professional actors, and a fierce belief in human and social rights."
One of the films screened was The Accordian, a short that's Panahi's contribution to Then and Now: Beyond Borders and Differences, an omnibus film supported by the United Nations; the film premiered at the Venice Film Festival in September. Panahi: "The Accordion is the story of humankind’s materialistic need to survive in a pretentious religion. In it, a boy is prevented from playing for reasons of religious prohibition, which he accepts in order to survive. But the main character of the film is the girl or, perhaps, in my view, the symbol of the next generation."
Updates, 12/21: "The social brutality, cultural nullity, political arrogance and geopolitical incompetence of this move is breathtaking," writes the Guardian's Peter Bradshaw. "To silence an artist, and indeed to alienate possible constituencies of liberal sympathy for Iran in the west, is fantastically crass. The Berlin film festival has already invited Panahi to join its jury in February 2011, for a start. Berlin, Cannes, Venice, London, Edinburgh, Sundance, Telluride and every film festival in the world should make Panahi their jury president, and keep doing so for every year this gross injustice is maintained. Jeremy Hunt, our culture secretary, should make representations. The Index On Censorship should clearly support Panahi.... Panahi is an important, powerful voice. It is disgusting that it should be silenced by the malign clumsiness of the state. British cinemas should continue to show Panahi's films, to remind the world of the humane, civilised artist that is being silenced. How about a protest retrospective at the BFI Southbank?"
Similarly, the New Yorker's Richard Brody: "Let there be no film festival at which these horrors go unmentioned; let journalists and scholars who speak freely about films preface their public remarks with a reminder of the cruelty that is inflicted on these filmmakers who may never be able to do so again."
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