Jafar Panahi

A passionate declaration of love for the cinema and poetry of Iran, which also offers a frank view of the precarious situation for critics of the regime and shows the uncompromising daily struggle of Iranian women against their oppression.

Three actresses at different stages of their career. One from before the 1979 Islamic Revolution, one popular star of today known throughout the country, and a young girl longing to attend a drama conservatory. Well-known actress Behnaz Jafari is left distraught when she comes across a provincial girl's video plea for help, after her family prevents her from taking up her studies at the Tehran drama conservatory. Behnaz abandons her shoot and turns to filmmaker Jafar Panahi to help with the young girl's troubles. They travel by car to the rural northwest, where they have amusing encounters with the charming and generous folk of the girl's mountain village. But Behnaz and Jafar also discover that old traditions die hard. —Anonymous

Banned from making movies by the Iranian government, Jafar Panahi poses as a taxi driver and makes a movie about social challenges in Iran. When you are a filmmaker and you are not allowed to direct movies any more, you have to retrain. So why not become a taxi driver? Or better, why not pretend you are a taxi driver and make a film despite everything? This is what Jafar Panahi has done. Now he invites you to get into his cab for the price of a cinema ticket, to ride through the streets of Tehran and discover its people in the persons of his various passengers. —Guy Bellinger Director Jafar Panahi drives a cab through the streets of Teheran. The changing passengers speak out openly what is on their mind. A female teacher and a young man discuss death penalty, a bootlegger offers the new season of "The Walking Dead" and some Woody Allen movies, two old women want to transport their goldfish in a glass bowl, a young woman wants to transport her much older husband who has been injured in an accident, and a cheeky little girl explains the rules of Iranian filmmaking and her entitlement to a frappuccino.

An Iranian pizza delivery man sees the worst of corruption and social unbalance in his city and is driven to crime. For Hussein, a pizza delivery driver, the imbalance of the social system is thrown in his face wherever he turns. One day when his friend, Ali, shows him the contents of a lost purse, Hussein discovers a receipt of payment and cannot believe the large sum of money someone spent to purchase an expensive necklace. He knows that his pitiful salary will never be enough to afford such luxury. Hussein receives yet another blow when he and Ali are denied entry to an uptown jewelry store because of their appearance. His job allows him a full view of the contrast between rich and poor. He motorbikes every evening to neighborhoods he will never live in, for a closer look at what goes on behind closed doors. But one night, Hussein tastes the luxurious life, before his deep feelings of humiliation push him over the edge. —Sujit R. Varma

Various women struggle to function in the oppressively sexist society of contemporary Iran. In a hospital waiting room a woman learns her daughter, Solmaz Gholami, has just given birth. The ultrasound test had prepared the family for a boy. The baby, it turns out, is a girl. The joy the mother anticipated turns to terror for she knows her son-in-law's family will abandon her daughter. The old woman flees as the in-laws arrive. On the crowded streets of Tehran - a place where women are not permitted to stay out on their own or smoke in public - two women are also on the run. Arezou and Nargess have just been granted temporary leave from prison but they have no plans to return. They manage to scrounge together enough money for the bus trip to Nargess' hometown, but she lacks proper identification, and the police are searching everyone at the station. Meanwhile, their friend Pari has just escaped from prison in order to have an abortion. Threatened with death by her brothers, she flees from her father's house and meets with a former inmate, Elham, who is now married to a doctor and works in a hospital. Despite her connections, Elham is unable to help Pari in her hour of need. Despondent, Pari wanders the streets and chances upon Nayereh, a woman about to abandon her young daughter. Pari tries to stop her, but it is too late. Soon after, Nayareh, falsely accused of prostitution, is taken into custody by the police. As Panahi's narrative shifts dynamically from woman to woman, their stories culminate with tremendous potency, transforming a shared sense of despair and injustice into one kinship, and even hope. —Anonymous

When a young girl becomes lost in the hustle and bustle of Tehran, her journey turns into a dazzling exercise on the nature of film itself. When a young girl becomes lost in the hustle and bustle of Tehran, her journey turns into a dazzling exercise on the nature of film itself. In this ingenious and daringly original feature, world renowned director Jafar Panahi (The White Balloon, Crimson Gold) has wrapped a blunt political critique inside the layers of a deceptively simple film. —[from video jacket] A girl in traditional female clothing, with her arm in plaster, comes out of school one day and doesn't find her mother meeting her. She decides to travel home herself, although she doesn't know her address and remembers the road only visually. —Anonymous

It is the eve of the Iranian New Year. The film opens in a market in the city of Kashan where seven-year-old Razieh (Aida Mohammadkhani) and her mother are shopping. Razieh sees a goldfish in a shop and begins to nag her hurrying mother to buy it for the festivities instead of the skinny ones in her family's pond at home. (Note: Almost all of the film's major characters are briefly seen in this market scene, though they won't be introduced to the viewer until later.) On their way home, mother and daughter pass a courtyard where a crowd of men has gathered to watch two snake charmers. Razieh wants to see what is happening but her mother pulls her daughter away, telling her that it is not good for her to watch these things. Back home, Razieh is upset about her mother's refusal to let her buy a new goldfish, but continues her campaign of nagging. Her older brother Ali (Mohsen Kalifi) returns from a shopping errand for their father who, although remains unseen has a tangible presence causing tension in the family. He complains that he asked Ali to buy shampoo, not soap, then throws the soap bar at him. Ali sets off to buy the shampoo and when he returns Razieh enlists his help in changing her mother's mind about the goldfish, bribing him with a balloon. Insisting that she can buy the goldfish in the market for 100 tomans ("You're crazy," Ali tells her, remarking that he can see two films with that money), Razieh finally gets her wish. Her mother gives her the family's last 500-toman banknote and asks her to bring back the change. Razieh sets off with an empty glass jar to the fish shop a few blocks away. Between their home and the fish store, Razieh manages to lose the money twice, first in an encounter with the snake charmer, and then when she drops the money through the grate at the entrance to a store which has been closed for the New Year celebration. Razieh and Ali make several attempts to retrieve the money and receive assistance from many people, including the owners of nearby shops and a local Iranian soldier. The money, however, is always just out of reach. Finally, the siblings receive help from a young Afghan street vendor selling balloons. He carries all of his balloons on a wooden stick, and has only one balloon, a white one, left. The group attaches a piece of gum to one end of the balloon stick, and with it, they reach down through the grate and pull the money out. Razieh and Ali then run off to finally purchase the goldfish. The film ends, not with Ali and Razieh, but with the young Afghan boy, who has become an important character only at the very end of the film as he watches the two siblings pass by him after they successfully purchase the goldfish.