We're in a small Iranian village on the border of Turkey, where the director is supervising the shooting of a new film. The location is a half hour drive across the border, and tells the story of an unlucky couple trying to escape to Europe. At the same time the director gets in trouble in the village as he might have taken a picture of an «illegal» young couple, as the woman is promised to someone else. Fear and superstition explodes, and being a director becomes very difficult. As in real life.

Cast & Crew
Producer: Jafar Panahi
Director: Jafar Panahi
Script: Jafar Panahi
Director of Photography: Amin Jafari
Sound: Jorge García Bastidas, Marco Marcini
Editing: Amir Etminan
Cast: Jafar Panahi, Vahid Mobasseri, Bakhtiar Panjei, Mina Kavani
Production. JP Production

Awards
Jury Special Prize, Venice IFF, 2022; Silver Mirror Award, Oslo Films from the South Festival, 2022; Award for Cinematic Bravery, Chicago IFF, 2022; Best Film – SNCCI Award, Trieste FF, 2023

Jafar Panahi (born 1960, Mianeh, Iran)
The cinema of Jafar Panahi is often described as Iranian neo-realism. Regardless of how one chooses to categorize his powerful work, the unprecedented humanitarianism of Panahi’s films cannot be denied. Panahi’s cinema is urban, contemporary and rich with the details of human existence. Panahi’s The Circle won the Golden Lion at the 2000 Venice Film Festival. The unsettling drama about the social dilemma of several modern Iranian women was named FIPRESCI’s "Film of the Year" and appeared on Top 10 lists of critics worldwide. Panahi debuted in 1995 with The White Balloon. Before that, he had made short documentaries and short fiction films and worked as assistant director, most notably for Abbas Kiarostami in Through the Olive Trees (1993) which boosted his career. Panahi made his first feature based on a script by Kiarostami. The White Balloon received Camera d’Or at the Cannes Festival, as well as other prizes from various festivals. The story of a young girl’s adventures as she seeks to buy a lucky goldfish for New Year, The White Balloon marked the emergence of a new cinema talent. Panahi’s 1997 film, The Mirror, received the Locarno Festival’s Golden Leopard, and confirmed the young director’s promise. Crimson Gold was selected in Un Certain Regard at Cannes in 2003 where it won the Jury Prize. It went on to win a number of best film awards and opened to excellent critical response.

Filmography
The Wounded Heads (1988, doc.), Kish (1991, doc.), The Friend (1992, short), The Last Exam (1992, short), A Second Look (1993, doc.), White Balloon (1995), Ardekoul (1997, doc.), The Mirror (1997), The Circle (2000), Crimson Gold (2003), Offside (2006), Untying the Knot (2007, segment “Persian Carpet”), This Is Not a Film (2010), Then and Now (2010, parts “Beyond Borders”, “Differences”), Closed Curtain (2013), Taxi (2015), Où en êtes-vous Jafar Panahi? (short, 2016), 3 Faces (2018), Celles qui chantent (doc., 2020), Hidden (short, 2020), The Year of the Everlasting Storm (segment Life, 2021), No Bears (2022).