Iranian Director Flouts Ban on Filming

For two decades, Jafar Panahi has offered a window into contemporary life in his native country despite pressure from the government

PET PROJECT: Iranian director Jafar Panahi's 'Closed Curtain' examines his country's ban on walking dogs in public.

by Tobias Grey, The Wall Street Journal

In Jafar Panahi's new movie, a writer in Iran smuggles his pet dog into his home inside a tote bag. The film, "Closed Curtain," addresses Iranian lawmakers' recent ban on dog-walking in public, part of an effort to curb perceived Western influences including keeping pets. For two decades, Mr. Panahi has captured such vagaries of life in his native country.

"Closed Curtain," which won the best screenplay award at the Berlin Film Festival in 2013, opens at New York City's Film Forum on July 9. It is Mr. Panahi's second film since December 2010, when Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Court banned him from making movies for 20 years. 

The 53-year-old director has flouted the prohibition and continued to expand a body of work that has earned him critical acclaim around the world—and scrutiny at home. He first piqued the ire of Iranian authorities with "The Circle" (2000), which assailed the treatment of women under the country's Islamist regime. Six years later in "Offside," he mocked a law prohibiting Iranian women from attending professional soccer games.

As jury president of the 2009 Montreal World Film Festival, Mr. Panahi persuaded fellow jury members to wear green scarves to support Iran's pro-democratic Green Movement.

More than three years ago, Mr. Panahi was accused of spreading propaganda and undermining national security. He was found guilty and sentenced to six years in prison—time he hasn't yet served—and forbidden from traveling abroad or giving interviews. 

Mr. Panahi's previous project, the documentary "This Is Not a Film" (2011), was shot almost entirely in his Tehran apartment. "Closed Curtain," which blends fiction and autobiography, was shot exclusively in his beach house beside the Caspian Sea. While the director is free to move throughout Iran, he isn't allowed to make movies.

Friends say Mr. Panahi chafes at the government-imposed strictures and oversight. They say that led the director to disregard the moratorium on media contact and speak with The Wall Street Journal. 

In a recent telephone conversation—a rare interview since the sentencing—Mr. Panahi explained how the prohibitions have affected his work. 

Jamsheed Akrami, a New York-based Iranian documentary maker who has known the director for 20 years, interpreted for Mr. Panahi, who spoke in Farsi during the call. Mr. Akrami, who lives in New York, then interpreted Mr. Panahi's answers into English.It isn't clear if the authorities in Tehran are aware of the conversation. Mr. Panahi's answers, edited from the interview: 

WSJ: In your latest film "Closed Curtain" a neighbor visits the character whom you play and a conversation ensues. This neighbor says "There's more to life than work, there are other things too." To which your character replies "Yes, but those things are foreign to me." Is this coming from your personal experience?

Mr. Panahi: Everybody looks at the world from his own point of view so the neighbor in that scene is reflecting his own perspective on life and the kind of things that he's interested in. For a filmmaker, life without making movies has no meaning. His life would be reduced to a vegetated state if he's not allowed to do the kind of thing that gives it some sense. 

WSJ: How did you feel to be banned from making movies for twenty years?

Mr. Panahi: Well, my immediate reaction was not to understand it. I could not understand what not making movies for twenty years would basically mean. I was thinking that this was more like a kind of joke so I didn't have much reaction to it except for the confusion. But after it began to sink in, it was a bitter experience. 

WSJ: Did you quickly decide that you would not stand for this?

Mr. Panahi: No, it really took me a while to figure out what I needed to do. Out of a sense of not believing that kind of harsh sentence I went back to the censors and gave them a script I had written about war which I thought would be of interest to them. I was waiting for about a month for them to respond to me about whether they would approve that script or not but there was no response. 

I had been hoping that the appeals court would reverse my ban but when I didn't hear anything about my script I began to think things were more serious. At the same time my lawyer kept telling me that this kind of sentence didn't make any sense and there was no precedent for it so I shouldn't worry. 

But after a month of not hearing anything back from them I realized that the situation was more serious than I had thought. I should add that when I was arrested along with another colleague we both wrote letters to the government to try to clarify our situation. My colleague's letter was accepted and his sentence was reduced but mine was not. 

WSJ: What kind of help do you receive from friends inside Iran?

Mr. Panahi: It's hard to expect other people to help you in a situation like this, especially inside Iran, because it may cause trouble for them as well. That's why I don't get in touch with a lot of people who I know because I know my telephone is being tapped. So I really don't expect anyone in the country to do anything for me. For the same reason that I don't want to involve anyone else in my troubles, whenever I come up with an idea to do something it ends up being a very limited idea which can be done in a very confined space with a minimum number of cast and crew. 

When I made "This Is Not a Film" that caused some difficulties for my colleague Mojtaba Mirtahmasb who was the co-director on that film and had his passport confiscated. Again, when I collaborated with Kambuzia Partovi and the actress Maryam Moqadam on "Closed Curtain" their passports were confiscated. 

That's why I really have to reconsider what I'm doing and come up with a small-scale project that I can shoot and sound-record myself without involving other people. I'm even thinking about not using any actors or actresses. By necessity my movies are becoming more and more minimalistic. I realize that they will test the patience of audiences because these are not the kind of movies that I used to make or are expected of me. But in the absence of my freedom as a filmmaker that's all I can do.

WSJ: Why did you use co-directors on "This Is Not a Film" and "Closed Curtain?"

Mr. Panahi: In the case of "This Is Not a Film," Mr. Mirtahmasb is an experienced documentary maker whereas I didn't have any experience in that kind of movie… [Kambuzia] Partovi, who worked on "Closed Curtain," is a well-established screenwriter and director. I thought their experience would be valuable to me. Maybe the fact that these two filmmakers volunteered to actually work with me was their way of saying: "You're not alone in this. We're with you, we share your sentence and we share your predicament." In a sense that was their message to me and I think they sacrificed their own situations to do something for me.

WSJ: What was your inspiration for "Closed Curtain?"

Mr. Panahi: Before I made the movie I was feeling very depressed and that's why I went to my beach house at the Caspian Sea. When I arrived I noticed that the windows were broken so I started fixing them and made some other changes in the house. I gradually felt my beach house could be a nice location for a movie. That's how I began to work with Mr. Partovi on writing the film's script. The important thing is that when I started working I wasn't feeling depressed any more. But at the same time I wanted to reflect that state of mind in the movie as well so that's why it is inhabited by a kind of melancholy. The psychological touches that you see here and there in the film reflect my state of mind right before I made it. 

WSJ: How does "Closed Curtain" differ from your previous movies?

Mr. Panahi: I think of myself as a realist filmmaker whose function is to reflect the surrounding environment in his movies. In my past movies I had a tendency to film a lot of exterior scenes because I had the freedom to shoot outside. But now that the authorities have forced me to abandon that environment and instead be reduced to the confines of a house, naturally my type of filmmaking has altered as well.

WSJ: Where did you find the wonderful dog which features so prominently in the movie? 

Mr. Panahi: We were looking for a dog in some very different places. Finally we ended up buying one from a peddler at a market near the Tehran cemetery where they also sell birds. I asked the vendor if it was legal to sell and buy dogs there and he replied that it was but only in that corner of the city. At first what interested us about that dog was his physique and size. But then we realized as we started playing with the dog that he was very well trained. We left the dog with Mr. Partovi at his house so that they could get accustomed to each other. Throughout we were amazed by the kind of skills the dog kept on exhibiting. 

The endearing canine star of 'Closed Curtain.' Courtesy The Wall Street Journal and Celluloid Dreams.

 

WSJ: What kind of freedom of movement do you have at the moment?

Mr. Panahi: I don't have any limitations of movement within Iran but I can't leave the country. 

WSJ: What are the biggest obstacles you face as a filmmaker working on location in Iran today?

Mr. Panahi: It's not just me but anybody who wants to use public locations in Iran for making a movie has to have permission from the government. Every filmmaker has to secure a government-issued permit to be able to shoot anywhere in the country. Otherwise he or she will be arrested by the police and their equipment confiscated. 

So, it's a high risk to run if we work without that permit in public places. But there are ways that some filmmakers get around it. For example, they get a permit or approval to do a short film and instead they make a feature film surreptitiously. 

WSJ: Did you have any intrusions from the authorities while you were making "This Is Not a Film" or "Closed Curtain?"

Mr. Panahi: We couldn't have been more careful when we were making those two movies. We confined ourselves to a house environment so basically we were only shooting interiors. Also, whenever we were discussing these projects on the phone we were quite careful not to give anything away. We were speaking a language of codes. In "Closed Curtain" when you see the black drapes inside the house we didn't use them because the movie was calling for it aesthetically but to cover up what we were doing inside the house so that nobody from outside could see us.

WSJ: How long did it take to shoot "Closed Curtain" and how much did it cost to make?

Mr. Panahi: It took us 26 days to shoot the film. It was a very low-budget movie because nobody received any salaries for their contributions to the film so I ended up paying for it out of my own pocket. 

WSJ: You have described the situation in your homeland as "the dark ages for filmmaking in Iran" yet there have never been so many talented Iranian filmmakers. How do you explain this?

Mr. Panahi: I don't see any contradiction in that in terms of how difficult the situation is for filmmaking. But at the same time we have a lot of filmmakers, especially young talents, who have burst onto the scene and have very fresh ideas. They have emerged from the same circumstances and without trying to justify the censorship I must say that sometimes it's the restrictions which provoke the filmmakers to come up with creative solutions. 

WSJ: "This Is Not a Film" was smuggled to the Cannes Film Festival in a flash drive hidden inside a cake. How did you get "Closed Curtain" to the Berlin Film Festival?

Mr. Panahi: Well, thanks to advancements in technology it's not very difficult to send a movie to a festival. All you need is to find a traveler, somebody who is going abroad, and give them your movie in a USB flash [drive]. This is very different from the way it used to be. 

I remember when I was smuggling out my movie "The Circle" (2000) to the Venice Film Festival I had a lot of difficulties and finally we ended up tricking the government by putting the reels of my film in a package which had the name of another movie on it. They thought they were sending a different movie to Venice. 

Another time, again with "The Circle," I had to hide the film reels in different packages and put them in different places. But all you need now is a small external hard drive to keep your movie safe somewhere. 

The government used to use technology against filmmakers because in Iran if you want to make a movie you have to rent equipment from the government. This monopoly was another way they could control filmmaking but today technology is so advanced that all you need to make your movie is a small [high-definition] camera. You don't need to go to the government for equipment any more. 

WSJ: Iranian directors like Abbas Kiarostami and Asghar Farhadi have recently been pursuing their careers abroad. Would you consider this?

Mr. Panahi: The idea of making a movie outside of Iran is not a bad idea and appeals to me as well. In fact when my passport was first confiscated in Tehran Airport I was about to leave the country for Paris to negotiate with producers about making a movie outside of Iran. This was six months before I was sent to jail. [In the spring of 2010, Mr. Panahi spent more than three months in Tehran's Evin Prison for charges that weren't specified.]

So I have no problem making a movie outside but I would like to be able to come back to Iran. I would have a very hard time if I realized that I have to stay in exile and do not have the ability to come back to my own country. 

Interestingly, when I was sentenced to this ban and to imprisonment some friends told me that maybe that it was the government's way of telling me to get out of the country. It's not difficult for filmmakers to leave the country but I don't want to flee my own country. If there is a situation whereby I can leave the country and make a movie, I would welcome that, but I need to know that I have the ability to come back. 

Via The Wall Street Journal