I got out of a jam-packed P&I screening of Jafar Panahi’s No Bears literally two minutes after the Venice Film Festival announced a special jury prize for the film. It’s probably not overly cynical to attribute at least part of both my screening’s high attendance and the festival’s award to the sad news that the director is back in jail—his status as a high-profile Iranian dissident is inextricable from his work since 2011 when, under house arrest and banned from making movies, he started making features with him front and center as the lead protagonist. That on-screen character is by now […]
by Vadim Rizov on Sep 10, 2022The first trailer has arrived for acclaimed Iranian director Jafar Panahi’s No Bears, which features the director starring as a version of himself. According to the official synopsis, the film follows “two parallel love stories in which the lovers struggle with hidden and unavoidable obstacles, the force of superstitions and the mechanics of power.” Along with the film’s new trailer, Celluloid Dreams has uploaded two snippets from the film to their YouTube channel: one scene that contextualizes the film’s title, and another that depicts the oft-paradoxical hurdles Panahi faces in continuing his cinematic practice. A politically defiant and visually vital filmmaker, […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Aug 18, 2022