New York Film Festival 2011: The Student and This is Not a Film

BROOKLYN, N.Y.—

I didn't have much of an idea going into Santiago Mitre's The Student what I was in for; heck, I didn't even have much of an idea of what other critics were saying about the film, if anything. Turns out, this is a reasonably engaging political drama from Argentina that manages to yield some dividends with its college-as-microcosm-of-Argentinian-politics conceit. It's a solid piece of work overall—as I try to suggest in my latest House Next Door New York Film Festival dispatch. (It screens on Saturday, Oct. 8, at 12:30 p.m. and Wednesday, Oct. 12, at 6 p.m., if any of you in the tri-state area are interested in checking it out.)

Also, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention this in passing: Yesterday, I saw what I would probably consider my favorite film of the festival up to this point: This Is Not a Film (2010), the recent collaboration between Jafar Panahi and Mojtaba Mirtahmasb done while Panahi was still under house arrest and awaiting what would eventually be his sentence to six years in prison and 20 years banned from filmmaking. It's a documentary that doubles as a richly self-reflexive piece of cinema—but, like fellow Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami's great Close-Up (1990), it balances intellectual concerns with real, heartfelt emotion. The result is a heartening middle finger to a repressive regime and a deeply moving personal testament of an artist maintaining his humanistic stance even in the midst of imminent imprisonment that threatens to completely silence his voice. (Even the story of how the film was smuggled out of Iran is inspiring, being that it was smuggled in a USB drive hidden in a cake.)

I wasn't assigned this film to review, so consider that my (too short) review. Even shorter version: You must see this! (It screens at the New York Film Festival on Thursday, Oct. 13 at 6 p.m.)

Free Jafar Panahi and Mohammad Rasoulof!

NEW YORK—

Jafar Panahi

Mohammad Rasoulof

This is a day late...but no matter, because this isn't likely to become any less relevant in the coming days...or years, actually.

I refer, of course, to the recent sentence handed down by Iran's repressive government sending Iranian filmmakers Jafar Panahi and Mohammad Rasoulof to prison for six years and banning Panahi—an internationally renowned world-cinema giant—from making any more films for 20 years. This ruthless silencing of artistic voices would be terrible for any nation, but it is especially enraging in Iran, for which this kind of thing is a deeply unfortunate way of life.

Admittedly, my exposure to Panahi's work is, as of now, limited to his last—and maybe final?—film Offside (2006), a trenchant and subversive humanist comedy-drama set detailing the attempts of a handful of women—who are banned from entering sports stadiums altogether—to watch a major soccer match live. It's a fantastic film, available here in the United States on DVD but banned—as are all of his films—in his home country. And I've seen nothing by Rasoulof, though I hear from many of my New York cinephile friends that his most recent film The White Meadows (2009) was one of the highlights of this year's Tribeca Film Festival. Putting all that aside, however, this kind of governmental clampdown on free artistic expression is absolutely unacceptable and needs to be fought whenever it pops up, as it has here in upsetting fashion.

David Ehrlich, a writer for Cinematical, sums up the outrage eloquently, so I'll let him have the last word here (and, of course, read his full post here):

The Guardian spoke with Hamid Dabashi, a professor of Iranian studies at Columbia University, who opined that, "This is a catastrophe for Iran's cinema. Panahi is now exactly in the most creative phase of his life and by silencing him at this sensitive time, they are killing his art and talent." Dabashi later detailed the national ramifications of Panahi's sentence, offering that, "Iran is sending a clear message by this sentence that they don't have any tolerance and can't bear arts, philosophy or anything like that. This is a sentence against the whole culture of Iran. They want the artists to sit at their houses and stop creating art. This is a catastrophe for a whole nation."

Editorializing, ahoy! To echo Dabashi's sentiments, this is obviously both a tragic day for cinema as well as a tragic day for human progress. It appears as if the autocratic forces of regressive censorship haven't just robbed the world of one of its most vital artists, but also a country of one of its most essential voices. As film lovers and free-thinking people alike, we have no choice but to shine a light on this atrocity and shame those at fault into reversing their decision. This all feels like a ghastly clerical error, a mistake so flippantly unjust that it seems inevitable that the forces of reason will descend upon Panahi's cell and absolve him of this insanity. If only.

We're not here to stir our readers into political action, but art must be allowed to flourish, and Jafar Panahi's cinema is important in a way that cinema should no longer have to be. We urge you to consider both his films and his plight.