Jafar Panahi

In 1992, Jafar Panahi directed the TV film L'Ami, then worked as Abbas Kiarostami's assistant on Au travers des oliviers. In 1995, based on a screenplay by his friend Kiarostami, he directed his first feature film, Le Ballon Blanc, which won the Caméra d'Or at Cannes the same year. This was followed by Le Miroir, a documentary that won the Golden Leopard at the 1997 Locarno Festival.

His films denounce the inequality and lack of freedom in Iranian society. Panahi's many denunciations of the Iranian regime have earned him the reputation of a subversive filmmaker. In 2010, he was sentenced to 6 years of prison, then placed under house arrest with a ban on filming. After being placed on probation pending a verdict, Panahi, with the help of filmmaker Mojtaba Mirtahmasb, directed Ceci n'est pas un film (2011), a kind of filmic device in which he questions the current condition of Iranian cinema.

At the same time, he co-directs a new film, Closed Curtain, with Kambuzia Partovi. This won him the Silver Bear for his screenplay at the Berlin Film Festival in 2013. In 2015, Jafar Panahi unveils Taxi Teheran at the Berlin Film Festival. This is the first film he has shot alone and on location since 2010. Then, in 2018, he wins the Screenplay Prize at Cannes for his film Three Faces.

In 2020, he directed the short film Hidden for the 3ème Scène, in which he goes in search of a young woman who has a magnificent voice but has been banned from singing by the Iranian religious authorities. This short is part of the collective film The ones who sing.

His latest film, No Bears, won the Special Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival 2022.