C O N V E R S A T I O N | DISSIDENT CINEMA

DISSIDENT CINEMA
A conversation between
Jafar Panahi and Jamsheed Akrami

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Along with Abbas Kiarosatmi and Asghar Farhadi, Jafar Panahi is one of Iran’s most celebrated
SAM W. JACKSON

filmmakers. He’s also perhaps the most decorated, having won the top awards at the Venice Film
Festival for The Circle and the Berlin Film Festival for Taxi. Panahi is a favorite at Cannes, where he
took home the Camera d’Or for his debut The White Balloon, and the Un Certain Regard jury award
for Crimson Gold. He has accomplished all this despite having had more run-ins with Iran’s Islamic
government than any other artist working today. In 2009, his incarceration while shooting a film
about Iran’s street protests provoked an international uproar, forcing the government to release
him after three months. Although an Islamic court subsequently sought to punish him with a six-
year jail sentence and a 20-year ban from filmmaking, Panahi has courageously defied the ban and
surreptitiously continued to make films. The following is a conversation between Jafar Panahi and
the film scholar Jamsheed Akrami on free expression, or the lack thereof, in Iranian cinema over
the past 50 years. Akrami is a professor of film at William Paterson University and the director of a
trilogy of documentaries on Iranian film: The Lost Cinema, on Iranian cinema before the revolution,
Friendly Persuasion, on Iranian cinema after the revolution, and A Cinema of Discontent, on film cen-
sorship in Iran, all of which are available through the distribution company Kino Lorber.

56 Vol. XXXV, No. 1, Spring 2018 © 2018 Jafar Panahi & Jamsheed Akrami DOI: 10.1215/07402775-6894825

Jamsheed Akrami: Iranian artists and intel-
lectuals have never been blessed with freedom
of expression. While the censorship under the
Shah was harsh, it wasn’t as oppressive as it’s
been under the Islamic government, which
came to power in 1979. The changes in cen-
sorship were reflective of Iran’s transition from
a modern dictatorship to a totalitarian theoc-
racy. You must have been a teenager during
the last years of the Shah. What were you doing
during the revolution?
Jafar Panahi: I was 18 and in my last year of
high school. My classmates and I were among
the first groups of people that started shutting
down schools and demonstrating in the streets.
My wife jokingly likes to remind me that I was
responsible for ruining the country. But back
then everybody was actively involved, from
the extreme right to the extreme left. It was
a popular revolution and people were hoping
for a democratic society, which unfortunately
didn’t materialize.
I grew up in a poor neighborhood in south
Tehran, where political issues were not a prior-
ity. My whole family worked blue-collar jobs,
and I first became aware of class differences
when my father and I were painting an army
general’s house. Free expression was not al-
lowed in the country; I remember one day a
university student showed me a caricature of
the Shah, and was very cautious and secretive
about it.
Akrami: The last decade of the Shah’s rule
saw the flourishing of the Iranian New Wave,
which was a politically bold and aesthetically
innovative film movement. It was somewhat
similar to the French New Wave, as it grew out
of progressive filmmakers’ deepening disen-
chantment with the status quo in Iranian cin-
ema, but it was much more influenced by Ital-
ian neorealism in its depiction of the plights
of individuals caught in unfortunate social
JAFAR PANAHI & JAMSHEED AKRAMI
circumstances. However, the movement didn’t
weaken the hold of mainstream films, known
as filmfarsi, which were escapist and uninter-
ested in matters of social conscience. Were
you following the New Wave films?
Panahi: I only became interested in New Wave
films when I was older and could recognize the
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creative role of the directors. My father loved
the filmfarsis that featured well-known mov-
ie stars. So those were the first movies I saw.
He was a house painter and in the summers
I would help him out. I remember one day he
asked me to stay at a worksite and take care of
business in his absence. But I decided to go to
the movies instead. Guess what? My father was
in the same movie theater and didn’t seem too
pleased to see me there.
Akrami: Were you interested in Hollywood
films? They dominated Iranian screens before
the revolution. The movie business was so lu-
crative that major Hollywood studios actu-
ally set up offices in Tehran to distribute their
films. People now may find it hard to believe
that American movies were opening in Tehran
at the same time as other international cities.
Prestigious international arts and film festivals
were held in Iran, and Tehran seemed like the
film capital of the Middle East. Meanwhile,
Iranian filmmakers were not allowed to make
films critical of the ruling establishment. Cen-
sors even used to force foreign film distributors
to alter plots through dubbing or re-editing to
suppress any hint of subversive themes.
Panahi: I remember seeing Jaws and Close En-
counters of the Third Kind back then. Hollywood
movies haven’t been shown publicly since the
revolution because their content—especially
the ways in which women are portrayed—is
not compatible with Islamic values. But people
still watch bootleg DVDs and illegally down-
load movies at home. There is no dearth of
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Hollywood films in Iran, though they are not
officially imported.
Akrami: The success of the first New Wave
films inspired many aspiring filmmakers to
take advantage of new opportunities and make
their first films. How did you become interest-
ed in filmmaking?
Panahi: My first exposure to filmmaking came
when I was 12. I was a member of the Institute
for the Intellectual Development of Children
and Young Adults, and there was a casting call
for a short film. They needed a chubby boy my
age, and I got the part. That experience sparked
my interest in movies.
WHEN THE GOVERNMENT
HAS KICKED FILMMAKERS
OUT THE DOOR, WE’VE
JUMPED BACK IN THROUGH
THE WINDOW
Akrami: Going back to the revolution, I was a
student in the United States when it happened.
I’ve heard people say that they experienced
a kind of unprecedented, heavenly freedom
right afterward. That freedom was short-lived,
though. The Islamic revolutionaries were wag-
ing an anti-Western campaign, and they per-
ceived cinema to be a manifestation of West-
ern corruption. So they started to clamp down
on the media and curtailed free expression in
a much more oppressive manner than before.
Incredibly, they also banned all movies made
under the Shah, simply because women’s hair
was not covered. What are your memories of
those early post-revolutionary years?
58 WORLD POLICY JOURNAL
Panahi: Right after the revolution, I had to be-
gin my mandatory two-year army service in
the Kurdish region of Iran. The months after
the revolution were a period of transition, and
there was no organized control of the media.
The Shah’s government had fallen, but the
new Islamic government had not quite estab-
lished itself.
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Akrami: A year after the revolution the Iran-Iraq
war (1980-1988) erupted, which must have
coincided with the time you were in the army. Is
it true that you were captured during the war?
Panahi: Yes, but I was captured by Iranian
Kurdish guerrillas who were fighting the Islamic
government. They kept me and 11 others for
80 days. They were on the run themselves, and
they moved us from village to village until we
decided to stage a hunger strike to force them
to release us.
During the war, I was given a 16-mm cam-
era and assigned to shoot footage for televi-
sion news packages. I was happy to be car-
rying a camera instead of a gun. The army
offered me a job as a videographer after my
service, but I decided to go back to Tehran
and enroll in film school.
Akrami: Have you thought of making a movie
based on your wartime experiences?
Panahi: After I finished Offside (2006) I wrote
a script about the last days of the war, but the
censors rejected it. I think they thought they
couldn’t trust me with a movie about the war.
The government thinks it has a monopoly on
the war and Islamic issues, so they wouldn’t
want anyone other than their own filmmakers
to touch those subjects.
Akrami: You got your film education at a col-
lege run by IRIB, the government-controlled Is-
lamic Republic broadcasting agency.

Panahi: My attendance at that college coin-
cided with the moment when the Islamic Re-
public shut down all the universities under the
pretext of the Cultural Revolution. A few other
students and I suggested putting together a
film archive for the college while it was closed.
The administrators agreed, and this was the
beginning of a productive period for me. I had
the chance to find and watch many American
films and world cinema classics that had been
shown in Iran, though the hidden film prints
we could locate were not in good shape.
When the college re-opened, it took me five
years to graduate a four-year program because
they were constantly changing the curriculum.
Many courses I had taken would later be elimi-
nated. I ended up taking almost 180 credits to
graduate when only 144 credits were required.
But I was happy to be there because the college
had the best facilities in the country.
Akrami: But a free education there comes
with a commitment to work at a TV station
after graduation.
Panahi: Yes, we were contractually obligated
to serve in one of the provinces. I had never
been to the Persian Gulf, so I chose the port
city of Bandar Abbas. While there, I got a
chance to make a couple of short films. One of
them, “The Friend,” was inspired by Mr. Kiar-
ostami’s first short, “The Bread and the Alley.”
His film was about a dog blocking a boy from
entering an alley; in my film there were two
friends, and one was blocking the other’s path.
After making the shorts, I applied for a
transfer to Tehran. I also entered two films into
the Fajr Film Festival. Both were rejected, and
I was terribly disappointed. I was waiting one
day at the festival’s offices with my film reels
in my hands when I saw Mr. Kiarostami pass-
ing by. I stopped him and told him I had made
a film as an homage to his first film, but that
the festival rejected it. He noticed how big the
JAFAR PANAHI & JAMSHEED AKRAMI
reels were and asked me how long the film was.
I said, “40 minutes.” He smiled and said, “My
film was only 10 minutes long. How come your
homage is four times longer?” That meeting
paved the way for me to later get a job as his
assistant when he was making Through the Olive
Trees (1994).
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Akrami: Kiarostami wrote the script for your
debut feature The White Balloon (1995), about
a little girl who wants to buy a goldfish to cel-
ebrate the Iranian New Year. At that time, Ira-
nian cinema had gained an international repu-
tation for a particular genre of children’s films,
as some of the best Iranian films competing in
international festivals revolved around child
characters. This included Kiarostami’s Where
is the Friend’s Home (1986), Amir Naderi’s The
Runner (1985), Majid Majidi’s Children of Heav-
en (1998), and your first two films, to name
just a few. Interestingly, Kiarostami had already
moved on to making films with adult charac-
ters, but he wrote a children’s movie for you.
Panahi: When Through the Olive Trees was in
post-production, he asked me about my next
project. I mentioned The White Balloon as an
idea for a short film. He thought the idea had
the potential to be developed into a feature-
length film and offered to write the script for
me. He also made a strong recommendation to
my boss at IRIB and encouraged him to support
the project financially. He told him I could be-
come another Amir Naderi!
Akrami: Well, he was right. [Amir Naderi used
to make so-called “street films” before the rev-
olution—films whose plots unfolded mostly in
street scenes.] After the revolution, you contin-
ued in the tradition of Naderi with The White
Balloon and other films before you were banned
from working.
The White Balloon was one of the first Ira-
nian films to receive decent distribution in the
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United States. When it was about to come out,
I was working as a consultant with October
Films, an independent distribution company.
They were excited about releasing the film but
were not sure how to market an Iranian film
when the memory of the hostage crisis was still
fresh in the minds of many Americans. A com-
pany executive jokingly suggested that they
could use taglines such as “The movie that will
take your heart hostage” or “A movie you’ll
love, from a country you don’t like.”
Panahi: They bought the film at Cannes. It was
the first time I attended the festival, and I knew
nothing about the film business. I remember
IT WAS WIDELY BELIEVED
THAT FILMMAKERS WERE
USING THE GUISE OF
CHILDREN’S FILMS TO AVOID
THE ATTENTION OF CENSORS
one day, two gentlemen approached me and
introduced themselves as employees of differ-
ent American distribution companies. The one
from October Films told me that he had beaten
the other by two minutes to buy the rights. He
said he did it so his child could see it.
Akrami: Iranian cinema and Iranian politics
have had a symbiotic relationship over the
years. Films have benefited from having Iran
and Iranian politics as context, and the gov-
ernment has enjoyed the prestige the films
bring to the country by winning top interna-
tional awards, which the government usually
takes undeserved credit for. A government of-
ficial even claimed that the Oscar A Separation
60 WORLD POLICY JOURNAL
(2011) won for best foreign-language film was
the result of their lobbying in Hollywood! This
was the same government that had attempted
to shut down the film while it was being shot.
Panahi: The hardliners in Iran have problems
with certain films and filmmakers. They can-
not tolerate independent cinema. When the
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Ahmadinejad government came to power in
2005, it took an aggressive stance and claimed
it was going to strongly influence international
film festivals. That’s when it said it had lobbied
on behalf of A Separation.
I don’t think independent filmmakers co-
exist amicably with the government. We have
always tried to avoid the government and
shield ourselves from its interference. But the
hardliners have failed to silence independent
filmmakers. When they’ve kicked us out the
door, we’ve jumped back in through the win-
dow to do what we needed to do. Fortunately,
there are also some moderate elements in gov-
ernment who see cinema as a sort of goodwill
ambassador that can present positive views of
the Iranian people.
Akrami: That symbiotic relationship has also
adversely affected the Iranian films. After The
White Balloon was submitted to the Academy for
Oscar consideration, the Islamic government
attempted to withdraw it because of some po-
litical skirmish between the U.S. and Iran.
Panahi: I was summoned to the offices of the
Fajr Film Festival in Tehran, where an official
put a tape recorder in front of me and said,
“We understand you want to boycott the Os-
cars. Please make your statement.” I was puz-
zled and said, “Who told you that? I have no
such intention.” Later I learned that they had
already told their news agency that the film
had been pulled from Oscar consideration. I
felt like a pawn in a political fight between two
countries. It wasn’t just President [George W.]

Bush who was propagating the notion that you
are either with us or against us—the hardliners
in Iran had the same exact attitude.
Akrami: Your second film, The Mirror (1997),
also featured child actors, but like many Ira-
nian children’s films, it was not necessarily
suitable for children. It was about a little girl, a
first-grader, who was dissatisfied with a movie
she was acting in and wanted to quit. The film
was about nascent self-reflexivity in Iranian
cinema and wasn’t really meant for children.
It was widely believed that filmmakers were
using the guise of children’s films to avoid the
attention of censors. In other words, the films
used a child’s perspective to tackle the social
issues embedded in their narratives.
Panahi: True. The films were about children but
not for them. With The Mirror, I was also trying
to experiment with form. I wanted to tell two
different stories, one for each side of the mir-
ror (the mirror was literally the camera within
the film), each representing a different reality.
I pursued the same approach in my next film,
The Circle (2000), by using multiple narratives
and trying to shape them in a cohesive form. I
included adult characters in The Circle because
there were social issues that I could only ex-
plore through them. Besides, I thought that the
children’s film tradition was wearing thin, and
that it was time for me to start dealing more
directly with problems we were grappling with
as a society.
Akrami: The Circle signaled a radical and some-
what unexpected change in your career. It was
a departure from a world populated by children
to a gloomy adult world featuring the plights of
several despondent women. Your vision grew
considerably darker. What happened?
Panahi: Your vision naturally grows darker
when you leave the innocent world of children
JAFAR PANAHI & JAMSHEED AKRAMI
and enter the world of adults. The presence of
children tends to soften everything, even bit-
ter realities. But if you are a socially committed
filmmaker, you can’t close your eyes to adult
realities, no matter how dark they are. I didn’t
create them—I just shed light on them.
Akrami: You once told me that you created
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the adult characters in The Circle to see what
the little girls in your early films might be like
when they grow up.
Panahi: I was interested in exploring the chal-
lenges those girls would face as grown women
in a society like ours. The little girl in The White
Balloon goes through a lot to take home a gold-
fish. I was wondering how she would deal with
her problems as a young woman, and I tried to
find answers in The Circle.
Akrami: Did you intend for the film to be a
statement about the diminishing rights of
women in Iran?
Panahi: Again, if you make films about the re-
alities of Iran, you can’t ignore the restrictions
imposed on women.
Akrami: The Circle marked the beginning of
your seemingly unending problems with the
Islamic Republic censors. It didn’t receive a
screening permit in Iran, but you surrepti-
tiously sent it to the Venice Film Festival,
where it won the Golden Lion. Despite winning
this highly coveted award, the film remained
banned in Iran.
Panahi: My first encounter with the censors
happened when I made The Mirror and was
criticized for showing a bus in which women
and men were sitting in separate sections.
They thought I shouldn’t have shown that be-
cause it reflected badly on the country. My
response was to ask, why segregate men and
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women on buses in the first place if you are
ashamed of it?
When I sent the censors the script for The
Circle, they immediately rejected it. I didn’t give
up and kept pushing them for about a year to
approve the script. The reformist newspapers
also started criticizing the censors for keep-
ing a filmmaker who had won two major in-
ternational awards from making another film.
I finally got the permit to shoot the script. But
government agencies wouldn’t help me when
I needed their assistance. I couldn’t even get a
police car I needed for a scene. We ended up
painting a vehicle to use as a police car, which
was technically illegal, but we had no choice.
THE CENSORS ARE
SENSITIVE TO NAMES:
ALL THE GOOD CHARACTERS
MUST HAVE ISLAMIC
NAMES LIKE “MUHAMMED”
OR “HUSSEIN”
Akrami: I understand that when you first sub-
mitted the film to the Fajr Film Festival, they
asked you to cut 18 minutes of it.
Panahi: And I told them that I refused to cut
even one frame. I watched the film with the di-
rector of the festival and he couldn’t persuade
me that there was anything wrong with it. He
thought the film was too critical of the political
climate, which is what they always say when
they don’t allow a film to be shown. He also
said that the organizers had invited many for-
eign guests who wanted to see my new film,
and that it would be a shame to tell them the
film was unavailable. But I didn’t compromise.
62 WORLD POLICY JOURNAL
I did invite a few festival representatives
to my house. Alberto Barbera officially invited
the film to the Venice Film Festival after he
saw it. But the Ministry Of Culture and Islam-
ic Guidance refused to send a print, claiming
the film didn’t have a screening permit. Fortu-
nately, thanks to my fellow filmmaker Mohsen
Makhmalbaf, I had already sent a copy abroad.
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After learning about the film’s problems, he of-
fered to put my reels in a box labeled with the
title of his own film, Gabbeh (1996). The Min-
istry was sending Gabbeh to international festi-
vals at the time, and Makhmalbaf thought the
box wouldn’t attract suspicion. That’s how we
arranged for the print to be shipped to Venice,
although the Ministry also gave in and agreed
to let the film be shown a couple of days before
the festival. They had learned the festival had a
print, and summoned me to say that they knew
I had shipped out the film through a foreign em-
bassy in Tehran. I denied this, and didn’t reveal
Makhmalbaf’s role until many years later, after
he had left the country.
Akrami: Crimson Gold (2003) is about inequal-
ity and the widening divide between the haves
and have-nots in Iran. I imagine that is not a fa-
vorite subject of the country’s ruling class—or
the censors who represent their interests. The
film follows the tragic consequences of a vet-
eran’s moral disillusionment with the society
he has returned to. Its brutal realism was not
sanitized to the satisfaction of the government,
especially the hardliners who claim to advo-
cate for an equitable and pious Islamic society.
Panahi: Thanks to the fact that The Circle won
the Golden Lion at Venice, the censors couldn’t
keep me from making my next film. There were
many delicate and problematic details in the
original script of Crimson Gold that we left out
of the copy sent to the Ministry of Guidance
for approval. That version did not mention the
protagonist’s war history, how he had been

psychologically affected by it, or how one of
his former commanders had compromised his
principles. Predictably, the film did not receive
a screening permit. The censors didn’t even
bother to ask me to delete anything because
they knew I wouldn’t do it.
Akrami: Historically, Iranian filmmakers have
been a suppressed group, and are always try-
ing to expand their creative breathing space.
You break some taboos in Crimson Gold, includ-
ing rules regarding the use of language, and of
physical contact between men and women.
Characters in Iranian films are also unrealis-
tically polite, but we hear sexually suggestive
language in your film. Do you consciously try
to challenge the censors and push the envelope
with every film you make?
Panahi: When I am making a film, I don’t think
about the possible reactions it might provoke,
or whether some scenes could be shown or
not. I only concentrate on what’s right for the
film. I never start with a conscious decision
to break taboos. But if my characters need to
do or say something that might end up being
controversial, I won’t hesitate to do it. That’s
why I also showed my protagonist drinking in
the film, which caused a big stir since he was a
veteran. I avoid anything that would diminish
or distort reality in my films. If I can’t believe
something myself, then how could I expect my
audience to buy it?
Akrami: Probably more than the physical con-
tact and risqué language, the young, rich char-
acter who wears a tie and is portrayed as kind
and generous must have bothered the censors.
He looks like a typical villain from the post-rev-
olutionary films sanctioned by the government.
Panahi: Along the same lines, the censors are
also sensitive to names. All the good characters
must have Islamic names like “Muhammed”
JAFAR PANAHI & JAMSHEED AKRAMI
or “Hussein,” and the bad guys must have
names rooted in Iranian culture and mythol-
ogy. I don’t follow that in my films. I don’t even
divide my characters into good or bad people.
The characters who commit crimes in my films
are shown as victims of their circumstances.
Akrami: Even the slightest physical contact be-
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tween men and women is forbidden in Iranian
films. A scene in which men and women greet
one another and can’t shake hands, or one in
which a mother can’t hug her son, may convey
the false impression that Iranians are cold and
uncaring, which is far from the truth. Showing
female characters in the privacy of their homes
with their hair covered also creates a tarnished
and inaccurate image of Iran in the eyes of
the rest of the world. As a filmmaker with a
realistic approach, these restrictions must be
deeply unsettling to you. I wonder if that’s why
all the films you made before your 2010 ban
were set outside. In other words, perhaps you
didn’t shoot scenes of indoor family life be-
cause restrictions like the mandatory use of
hijab would render them fake.
Panahi: That’s quite right. That’s also why
most of my films take place within a short pe-
riod of time. A story with a limited duration
helps me stay outside, and doesn’t require go-
ing back and forth between exterior and inte-
rior scenes. I try to pick short stories that hap-
pen over a few hours or over a day, and are set
in public spaces.
Akrami: Have the censors ever told you in any
official manner what they object to in your
films? I’ve heard some filmmakers complain that
they are never given the reasons why their films
were banned. The Ministry of Guidance used to
publish guidelines defining the restrictions, but
they stopped doing that. I guess the lack of clari-
ty gives them a freer hand in censoring films and
asking for what they call “corrections.”
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Panahi: They never put anything in writing.
They may just call you into their offices and
tell you something verbally, as they did with
me when they banned The Circle. You never
get any official documents from them. They
impose several stages of control over filmmak-
ers. When you submit your script, they call for
changes. After they approve your script, they
occasionally monitor your production to make
sure you are shooting the approved script.
Then, they see the finished film and may re-
quire more changes. I have always avoided giv-
ing in to this extensive system of control, and
I’ve paid a price: My films haven’t received
screening permits in my own country.
WHEN I WANT TO GIVE
COPIES OF MY OWN FILMS
TO MY FRIENDS, I HAVE TO
BUY THE DVDS!
Akrami: With Offside (2006) you returned to
the issue of gender apartheid in Islamic Iran.
The film deals with how Iranian women are
banned from watching men’s sports in stadi-
ums. The title refers to a violation in soccer, and
your film is about violation of women’s rights.
Panahi: If you’re familiar with soccer rules, you
know that “offside” refers to a line behind the
defenders that shouldn’t be crossed. We have
many similar red lines in Iranian cinema and so-
ciety to keep us from advancing. So we thought
that although the title had one specific meaning,
it could also signify something more universal.
When I decided to make Offside, people
warned me the government would soon lift
the ban, and that the film would become dated
and irrelevant. My response was that I couldn’t
64 WORLD POLICY JOURNAL
see the ban being lifted anytime soon, and it
is still in effect a dozen years later. I also told
people I was making the film as a document
about a certain historical anomaly. Historical
documents don’t get dated.
Akrami: It’s hard not to notice the irony of im-
posing a ban on a film about a cultural ban. Were
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you hoping your film would change the govern-
ment ban on women attending soccer games?
Panahi: No, as I mentioned earlier, when I
make a film, I don’t think about how it might
affect people or policies. I wasn’t surprised
they banned the film. I hadn’t even submitted
its script for approval. They didn’t bother us
as we were shooting because we were using a
small video camera and they didn’t think we
were doing a serious project.
Akrami: Offside and your other banned films
have appeared in the contraband DVD mar-
ket in Iran. So the Iranian filmgoers can still
see your films, just not the way they should be
seen—in a theater, on a large screen.
Panahi: DVDs of Iranian films from foreign
countries normally find their way into the un-
derground market here, and that’s how people
get to see them. It was a different story with the
Offside DVDs, though. Because it was soccer-
related, I desperately wanted the film to be
shown in Iran before the 2006 World Cup in
Germany. The censors objected. But all of a sud-
den the DVDs appeared in the market and the
authorities blamed me for distributing them.
Akrami: I guess repression always breeds its
own antidotes. But you ended up losing the
money the film could have made in the domes-
tic market.
Panahi: The funny thing is, not only did I not
make any money, but when I want to give copies

of my own films to my friends, I have to buy the
DVDs. I don’t even get a discount!
Akrami: In your film Taxi (2015), in which you
pretend to be a cab driver, one of the passen-
gers you pick up is a DVD dealer and we see how
bootleg DVDs are distributed illegally, which is
to say, not in a terribly clandestine manner.
Panahi: The DVD dealer you see in the film actu-
ally studied law, but he earns a living delivering
bootleg DVDs to clients’ houses. Iran has a high
rate of unemployment among college graduates.
There are shops that have distribution permits
to sell DVDs, but if they know you, they will also
offer illegal titles, some of which may even have
been dubbed in Farsi outside of Iran.
Akrami: Iranian filmmakers can be divided into
pro-establishment and independent camps.
Anti-establishment filmmakers do exist in Iran,
but because dissent isn’t tolerated in the Is-
lamic Republic, they’re not allowed to express
themselves, and the consequences for doing so
can range from being jailed to being banned
from working to being forced into exile. Even
being an independent filmmaker is frowned
upon. Only filmmakers loyal to the government
get preferential treatment. Maybe if a pro-
establishment filmmaker had made a film like
Offside, they wouldn’t have banned it. The gov-
ernment seems to allow a little criticism, but it
must come from their trusted filmmakers.
Panahi: Yes, here who makes the film is more
important than what the film is about. They re-
jected my war-themed script. But if one of their
filmmakers had submitted the same script, I
am sure they would have approved it and pro-
vided them all sorts of facilities for the film’s
production, too.
Akrami: You’ve been labelled a dissident film-
maker, an artist who views his society through
JAFAR PANAHI & JAMSHEED AKRAMI
a dark lens, but you’d rather think of yourself
as a socially committed filmmaker who reports
on his reality; if the reporting is dark, it’s be-
cause reality is dark.
Panahi: I have always asked the censors if there
are misrepresentations or lies in my films. They
haven’t been able to find anything, but they ac-
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cuse me of showing the country in a bad light.
I tell them that most of the roughly 100 movies
produced here every year are movies they ap-
prove of—why can’t they tolerate a few films
about our problems?
Akrami: I think your films are cultural prod-
ucts of their time. You can’t live in post-
revolutionary Iran and be oblivious to social
ills. Artists with a social conscience are obli-
gated to deal with issues of inequality and in-
justice in their work. Italian neorealism was a
byproduct of a troubled period in Italy after
World War II. Filmmakers had no choice but to
reflect bleak conditions in their films.
Panahi: There are some filmmakers who can
only make movies in response to what’s happen-
ing in their environment. I belong to that group.
I can’t betray my convictions by making com-
promised films. You remember once I was ar-
rested in an airport in New York because I didn’t
submit to mandatory fingerprinting. I called you
from the airport while I was detained. It was a
challenging incident for me.
Akrami: Yes, it was in 2001 and you were ar-
rested for not having a transit visa as you were
flying from Hong Kong to Mar del Plata in Ar-
gentina. You had already told Winstar, the dis-
tributor of The Circle, that you wouldn’t do a
publicity tour in the U.S. as a protest gesture
against the fingerprinting of Iranian citizens in
this country. You told me you had vehemently
refused to be fingerprinted, telling the customs
agents in broken English, “Me artist, no finger.”
SPRING 2018 65
C O N V E R S A T I O N | DISSIDENT CINEMA
They chained you to a bench and detained you
overnight. You called me the following morn-
ing, but before I could come to the airport with
a lawyer, you had agreed to be deported back
to Hong Kong.
Panahi: I didn’t agree to anything. They gave
me a choice of either getting fingerprinted or
being deported. I could’ve just given in, but
I felt I would have been morally compromis-
ing myself if I did. So they put shackles on my
wrists and ankles and didn’t take them off until
they put me on a plane to Hong Kong.
Akrami: A month later the National Board
of Review, a society of film experts that cele-
brates achievements in contemporary cinema,
gave you the Freedom of Expression Award.
You wrote a strong letter to expose and pro-
test the inhuman treatment you had received
at the JFK Airport.
Panahi: I was questioning the merit of the
award itself coming from the same country
that had treated me like a criminal. Of course,
I could differentiate between the people cele-
brating my work and the racist agents carrying
out racist orders, but I was trying to bring at-
tention to the problem.
Akrami: Unfortunately, this was not your last
brush with detention. You had many more
run-ins with authorities in Iran and have some-
times ended up being arrested or jailed.
Panahi: In 2007, as I was returning home from
a trip to Australia after serving on a festival jury,
my passport was confiscated and I was taken in
for interrogation. Authorities chastised me for
giving a best actor award to an actor in the Is-
raeli film The Band’s Visit (2007). Interestingly,
I had also previously voted to give that film a
best picture award when I was the president of
the jury at the Antalya Film Festival in Turkey.
66 WORLD POLICY JOURNAL
I told them it was unethical for me to allow a
film’s nationality to influence my judgment of
its artistic merits.
Akrami: It sounds absurd, but the Iranian gov-
ernment has prohibited any cultural contact
between Iranians and Israelis.
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Panahi: They probably expected me to act like
the Iranian wrestlers who pretend to be injured
or sick when they are paired against Israeli
wrestlers in international competitions.
Akrami: Many top Iranian athletes have wast-
ed championship opportunities as a result of
this unwritten discriminatory policy, but they
are always hailed as heroes and financially re-
warded by the Islamic government. You were
also arrested a few times during the Green
Movement demonstrations in Iran in 2009.
When you were heading the jury at 2009 Mon-
treal Film Festival, you even asked fellow jury
members to show their solidarity with the pro-
testers in Iran, after which your passport was
confiscated again. Then, one evening in March
2010, your apartment in Tehran was raided
while you were shooting a film.
Panahi: We were making a film about a fam-
ily of four in the wake of the Tehran street
protests. The government agents said we
were making an illegal film and confiscat-
ed our camera and tapes. Everyone was ar-
rested, including my wife and daughter. The
crew and my family were let go shortly after.
Mohammed Rasoulof, a fellow filmmaker,
and another crew member were released af-
ter two weeks, but they kept me for almost
three months.
Akrami: You were eventually freed on bail
thanks to your hunger strike and unprecedent-
ed pressure from abroad, especially from fel-
low international filmmakers.

Panahi: I decided to go on hunger strike about
75 days into my incarceration. One night they
raided the cell I was sharing with three oth-
er inmates. They took us into another room
and searched us individually. When they
didn’t find anything, they pushed us out in
the prison yard and kept us in the cold for
an hour. I learned later that they had raided
my apartment at the same time looking for a
film. The following day, an interrogator asked
me, “What’s the title of the film you are mak-
ing here?” I asked, “What do you mean? How
could I make a film here?” He said, “The film
you are making about your life here.” I was
still puzzled and didn’t know what he was re-
ferring to. He didn’t like my silence and shout-
ed, “OK, when we throw your daughter in jail,
then you’ll tell us about your film.” He said it
in a threatening and vulgar tone that made me
really upset and concerned about my daugh-
ter’s safety. That was when I decided to go on
a hunger strike.
When I returned to my cell, I shared what
happened with my cellmates. It was then that
we figured out what must have transpired. I
had been waxing a bit philosophical one day,
saying that the whole prison experience was
another chapter in the movie of my life. One
of the cellmates had relayed that comment in
the same tone to his wife in a phone call, telling
her that Jafar Panahi was making the movie of
his life in prison. The guards who were moni-
toring the call had taken that quite literally
and thought I was making a film in prison!
Akrami: You were sentenced in 2010 to a six-
year jail term and a 20-year ban from making
films, doing interviews, and traveling abroad.
Panahi: The trial was a sham. It was obvious the
verdict had already been dictated to the judge
and whatever I had to say would not have made
any difference. One of my interrogators also
showed up during the trial, and I said as long
JAFAR PANAHI & JAMSHEED AKRAMI
as he was present in the courtroom, I would
not recognize the legitimacy of the court. Then
he got angry and started insulting me, saying,
“Who the hell do you think you are? I’ve invited
Michael Moore to visit and he’ll be in Tehran in
a couple of months.”
Akrami: Well, I can tell you he was partially
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right. Michael Moore told me that the govern-
ment had invited him repeatedly, and that he
always told them that they must stop mistreat-
ing Jafar Panahi and other Iranian filmmakers
before he could accept their invitation.
THEY WANTED TO LEAVE ME
WITH NO CHOICE BUT TO GO
INTO EXILE IF I WANTED TO
CONTINUE WORKING
Panahi: I told the interrogator it would be
great if he could get Michael Moore to come
to Iran!
Akrami: I must say that the way the Iranian
judiciary has treated you doesn’t make any
sense. First they slap you with a harsh and un-
justifiable sentence, and then they decline to
implement it without any explanation. They
haven’t even stopped you from making films
as long as you don’t go through their official
channels of monitoring and control. Ironically,
that’s what every filmmaker in every repressive
regime wishes for. Your verdict was meant to
send you to jail and deprive you of ever mak-
ing another film, but actually it has been like a
permit to work freely, albeit not too visibly. You
are barred from leaving the country, but you
can move freely and work within Iran.
SPRING 2018 67
C O N V E R S A T I O N | DISSIDENT CINEMA
Panahi: It’s all part of a policy of intimidation
by the government. They thought they could
make an example out of me to intimidate oth-
ers. But they had no idea that the international
reaction to my case would be so strong. That’s
why they eventually released me, but issued a
harsh verdict. They wanted to leave me with no
choice but to go into exile if I wanted to con-
tinue working.
They didn’t think I would stay and try to
find ways to make films. But I did. After that,
I knew I had to work with very small crews in
covered locations. My crew and I wouldn’t dis-
cuss anything on the phone or on social media.
We would always go to each other’s houses to
discuss plans. When I finish a film, the gov-
ernment may now think twice before doing
anything because they don’t want another in-
ternational outcry. A reformist politician once
told me that the government had always been
afraid of the people with political agendas—
they had no idea that they would have to pay
such a high price for harassing a filmmaker!
Akrami: What is your own understanding of
the situation? Do you see a resolution in sight?
Panahi: No, the hardliners would like to keep
the situation as is. They need to maintain an
air of crisis in the country in order to rule. If
it would lead to a way out of this situation,
sometimes I wish they would just come and ar-
rest me. I have so many ideas I cannot work
on because of the limitations I have been
condemned to live with. I don’t feel free. My
lawyer friend, Nasrin Sotoudeh, makes a good
point in Taxi when she says that they release
you from a small prison into a larger one be-
cause they’re still after you. I feel I am in that
large prison now.
Akrami: They have forced several Iranian film-
makers into exile: Mohsen Makhmalbaf and his
family, Bahamn Ghobadi, and Babak Payami, to
68 WORLD POLICY JOURNAL
name a few. How do you think banning you was
an attempt on their part to make you leave?
Panahi: My lawyer told me right after the ver-
dict was announced, “You are charged with
‘propaganda against the regime’ and ‘acting
against national security,’ for which the maxi-
mum penalty is six years of imprisonment.”
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She thought that the 20-year ban on filmmak-
ing was meant to make me leave the country.
Akrami: But if that was the message they were
trying to send, how would you leave if your
passport was confiscated and you were barred
from leaving the country for 20 years?
Panahi: They wanted me to leave illegally,
which is not hard to do. A friend told me he
could get me out of the country in 48 hours if I
wanted to leave. They deliberately confiscated
my passport to force me to leave illegally, so
I wouldn’t be able to return. Even before the
ban, an official in the Ministry of Guidance told
me I’d be better off working outside the coun-
try. But I want to stay and work here. That’s a
right they cannot take away from me.
Akrami: In some ways, your career might
eventually be divided into two periods: pre-
ban and post-ban, with five and four feature-
length films in each period. The differences
between the two periods are hard to ignore.
For one, all your films before the ban were
mostly shot outside, but the first two films
you made after the ban, This is Not a Film
(2012) and Closed Curtain (2014), were shot
indoors; the third, Taxi, within the confines
of a cab. You also star in your post-ban films
as the main character. They are all strikingly
personal films but they don’t show you as an
isolated individual. Rather, you’re depicted as
socially engaged and eager to probe social is-
sues through interacting with the characters
you bring into your world.

Panahi: I used to be able to take my camera di-
rectly into places where problems were. Now
that I’m not allowed to do that, I have to re-
flect on what I can experience. So I’m limited
in the subjects I can choose. They have to fit
within the conditions I live in. I explore social
issues, but I use myself as an observer now.
In This is Not a Film, I was still grappling with
my verdict and couldn’t think about anything
except that. When I was making Closed Cur-
tain, I was badly depressed, which is reflected
in the film. By the time I was making Taxi I
had come to terms with my circumstances
and was feeling somewhat better. I need to be
careful to not attract attention when I work,
and I don’t want to put anybody in any kind
of jeopardy as a result of working with me.
That’s why I need to keep my cast and crew
at a skeletal level, and if there is a part I can
play, I just do it myself.
JAFAR PANAHI & JAMSHEED AKRAMI
Akrami: In the wake of the widespread, week-
long street protests earlier this year, some high-
ranking government officials made statements
affirming the people’s right to protest.
Panahi: The right to protest is guaranteed in
the Constitution of the Islamic Republic. But
all kinds of protests have been quelled over the
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past 40 years. Authorities recently arrested 29
women for challenging the mandatory hijab
law. Those women were exercising their right
to protest. In an Instagram post, I asked the gov-
ernment to allow a general referendum so peo-
ple could freely voice their opinions about the
Islamic Republic. I am not holding my breath,
though. It wouldn’t be beneficial to those high-
ranking people to allow any changes. l
This interview has been edited and condensed
for clarity.
SPRING 2018 69