خرس نیست

No Bears

  • A man in glass looks up and to his left. That man is Jafar Panahi!
  • A man crouches with a camera. Kids sit on a wall in the background

خرس نیست

“Critic’s Pick. The latest feature from Jafar Panahi, who is currently imprisoned in Iran, explores the subversive power and the ethical limitations of filmmaking.”
NY Times
**Jafar Panahi has been released from jail on bail, two days after he went on hunger strike over his imprisonment. See Update, below.**

In his new virtuosic sleight-of-hand — completed shortly before his imprisonment in July 2022 — Jafar Panahi plays a fictionalized version of himself, who has relocated to a rural border town in Iran to remotely direct a new film in nearby Turkey. While there, he finds himself thrust in the middle of a local scandal, confronting the opposing pulls of tradition and progress.

Written & directed by Jafar Panahi. Starring: Jafar Panahi, Naser Hashemi, Vahid Mobaseri, Bakhtiar Panjei, Mina Kavani, Narjes Delaram, Reza Heydari, Javad Siyahi. Iran. In Farsi with English subtitles. 2022. 106 mins.

“He can’t be accused of taking movies lightly, or of taking himself too seriously. He has continued to practice his craft, conscientiously and playfully, at the risk of his comfort, his freedom and possibly his life…. he has continued in that vein of clandestine metacinema, playing himself (in “Closed Curtain” and “Taxi”) less as a heroic auteur than as a curious, gentle, sometimes foolish middle-aged family man who can’t break the habit of turning life into film… . His movies are personal and also political, as he aims his quizzical gaze at the petty hypocrisies and large injustices of modern Iran, as well as at the paradoxes of his own creative practice… Not long after NO BEARS was completed — it was filmed in secret earlier this year — Panahi was sentenced in Iran to six years in prison. In the months since, mass protests challenging the authority of the Islamic Republic have swept across the country and have been answered with brutal repression.” – A.O. Scott, New York Times.

“Iran’s ‘No Bears’ is the most profound film yet about directors and their movies” – Bob Strauss, SF Chronicle


JAFAR PANAHI UPDATE – 2/4/23

Jafar Panahi has been released from jail on bail, two days after he went on hunger strike over his imprisonment.

Read more


Runtime
1h 46m
Year
2022
Director
Jafar Panahi
Format
2D Digital
Country
Iran
Language
Farsi
First Showing
January 20, 2023
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