For Jafar Panahi

 

“Whenever I feel pain, I’m going to respond, because I’m not dependent on any party, and I don’t take orders, and I decide independently when I make my movies.”

(Jafar Panahi, 2003)

 

Occasioned by the recent incidents and the highly demoralizing situation in Iran, the Austrian Film Museum dedicates the latest chapter in its Utopia of Film series to the great Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi. Each Tuesday will see a screening of his award-winning works: The White Balloon (1995), The Circle (2000), Crimson Gold (2003) and Offside (2006). For his unflinching depictions of life in Iran, and for the sentiments expressed in the quote above, Panahi has been repeatedly punished by Iranian authorities and some of his works have been banned. However, the brutality suffered by the filmmaker in the last 18 months – since the peak of the Iranian protest movement and Panahi’s expressions of solidarity with imprisoned dissidents – has been unprecedented. After conducting a hunger strike in prison and worldwide outrage over his case, Panahi was released on bail in late May, 2010. That November, he and his filmmaking colleague Mohammad Rasoulof received a court hearing. On December 20, 2010, they were sentenced to six years in prison and banned from any filmmaking activities for 20 years. The justification for this verdict: that Panahi and Rasoulof had been in pre-production on a “propaganda film against the Islamic Republic,” a project which is “a crime against national security.” An appeals court will shortly rule on the case.

 

The Austrian Film Museum joins the international protests against the persecution of these two filmmakers, and against the verdict of December 20. This includes an urgent plea to the Iranian government to drop all charges and to respect the rights of freedom of expression, guaranteed by the Convention on Human Rights, which Iran has ratified.