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There’s a funny phrase in Hollywood — ‘director’s jail’ — that gets thrown around whenever a filmmaker finds their career in stasis after making a particularly high-profile flop. Reputations are certainly tarnished. Some go into television instead, and some never get back in the saddle. But, so far, no one there has ever been to jail for moviemaking. Not even in the paranoid early ’50s, when the House Un-American Activities Committee waged war on active Communist Party members, particularly those working in the liberal arts.

In Iran, though, incarceration is a very real threat, as director Mohammad Rasoulof knows all too well. The director of The Seed of the Sacred Fig — now Germany’s official submission for Best International Feature Film — Rasoulof caused a stir earlier this year when his film, his 10th, was selected for Cannes. Having confiscated his passport, the Iranian authorities ordered the 52-year-old to pull the film; meanwhile,...

After premiering “Terrestrial Verses” at the Cannes Film Festival in 2023, Iranian director Ali Asgari returned home to Tehran to find out he was banned from traveling for eight months, as well as having his personal belongings confiscated by the government authorities for weeks. The result of that period of uncertainty and introspection is the documentary “Higher Than Acidic Clouds,” having its world premiere as part of the Envision Competition at the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam.

The autobiographical essay — shot in Tehran in nine days — zooms in on Asgari as he grapples with long-buried memories reignited by an enforced period of disconnection from the world, reflecting on his time living in Italy and embarking on frank conversations with his family.

It is important to mention that, in recent years, several Iranian filmmakers have been forbidden by the country’s strict government from leaving the country to attend festival premieres of their films.

Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi will receive an honorary award at the Singapore International Film Festival (Sgiff) this year.

The 35th edition of Sgiff will organize a special tribute and hold a dialogue session with Panahi, who will receive the festival’s highest honor, the Cinema Honorary Award. This also marks the first time that Panahi is attending Sgiff in-person after the lifting of his 14-year travel ban. Panahi’s films like The Circle, This Is Not A Film and Crimson Gold will be screened at the festival.

The festival’s Cinema Honorary Award was introduced in 2014 and has recognized filmmakers like Hong Kong’s Fruit Chan, Indonesia’s Garin Nugroho, Cambodia’s Rithy Panh, and Japan’s Takashi Miike.

“It’s an incredible honor to be selected as the recipient of the Cinema Honorary Award by Sgiff,” Panahi said. “Since my visit to the festival in 1998 with my film, The Mirror,...

Iranian cinema icon Jafar Panahi will mark the lifting of his 14-year travel ban by attending the 35th Singapore International Film Festival (Sgiff). The festival’s lineup spotlights rising Singaporean talent and international auteurs.

The festival will open with Yeo Siew Hua’s “Stranger Eyes,” the first Singaporean film to premiere in the main competition at the Venice Film Festival.

Panahi, set to receive the festival’s Cinema Honorary Award, recognizing filmmakers who have made exceptional and enduring contributions to Asian cinema, will participate in an exclusive dialogue session. Several of his films will be screened, including “The Circle” and “This Is Not a Film.”

“It’s an incredible honor to be selected as the recipient of the Cinema Honorary Award by Sgiff,” Panahi said. “Since my visit to the festival in 1998 with my film, ‘The Mirror,’ I have been deeply impressed by the festival’s achievements in nurturing and...

“The Witness,” premiering at the Venice Film Festival, has sold to Benelux (Edgy), France (Jour2fete) and No.mad Entertainment (Italy). The film’s German distributor is Missing Films as previously reported. The film, which is directed by Nader Saeivar, and co-written by Saeivar and Jafar Panahi, is debuting its trailer (below).

“I’ve been working with Jafar Panahi since 2017 and ‘3 Faces.’ He taught me it’s possible to make a good film with a small group of people, in secret. Perhaps this type of filmmaking was actually invented by Panahi himself?” wondered Saeivar. Repeatedly persecuted and arrested, Panahi was recently released from jail in 2023 after he went on hunger strike.

“I am proud he’s been by my side, like a teacher, in all three films I’ve made. I learnt not to be afraid, not to make excuses and just make movies.”

In “The Witness,” a retired dance teacher...

Can’t make it to Toronto International Film Festival next week? Have no fear, Kino Film Collection is here to make you feel less left out. Though the streamer won’t be offering the latest selections from this year’s festival, to celebrate the annual showcase, it has created a program of 87 films that have previously screened there and will be available throughout the month. Below you can find some of the selections with language provided by Kino.

“3 Faces”

Winner of the Best Screenplay Award and nominated for a Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, “3 Faces” is Iranian director Jafar Panahi’s fourth feature since he was officially banned from filmmaking. Starring Behnaz Jafari as herself, Panahi’s film builds in narrative, thematic, and visual intricacy to put forth a grand expression of community and solidarity under the eye of oppression.

“Alps”

Before “The Favourite”, Academy...

By Pawel Mizgalewicz

So, that happened: a Canadian movie comes out where the metaphorical Winnipeg is actually Iran. Or maybe the other way around. Matthew Rankin's simile is absurd enough that it successfully cuts both ways, and in some way still manages to have substance, whatever way you wanna read it. It was not really conceived in Asia, but with mostly Iranian-Canadian screenwriters and cast, “Universal language” feels like something way more than only an homage or a joke – it's a film where the production and the story both reflect how cultural baggage carries on with migrants even on the other end of the world. At least, if you want it to. You could also just see it as a manifest of the uniqueness of Winnipeg – a city that, between “My Winnipeg” and “Phantom in Winnipeg”, weirdly seems to be most magical on Earth, if you'd believe festival cinema,...

Newsflash: Iran has invaded the sleepy Canadian city of Winnipeg. Correction: Iranian cinema has actually invaded Winnipeg. Precision: Two Iranian movies that launched the nation onto the international film scene, Abbas Kiarostami’s Where Is the Friend’s House? (1987) and Jafar Panahi’s The White Balloon (1995), have somehow found their way into the capital of Manitoba.

What exactly they’re doing there is never explained. Nor is it really the point of director Matthew Rankin’s bizarre and enchanting experimental comedy Universal Language, which picked up the first-ever audience award in Cannes’ Directors’ Fortnight. Starring the director himself alongside a cast of Farsi-speaking locals both young and old, the film is rather hard to describe on paper, but let’s give it a shot.

We’re in snow-covered Winnipeg, which half-resembles the drab, midsized Canadian city, and half looks like a neigborhood somewhere in Tehran — not present-day Tehran, but Tehran circa the 1980s and 90s.

Out of all the major filmmakers to emerge from Iran over the past decades, Mohammad Rasoulof has certainly grown into the most overtly political. His finely crafted, hard-hitting dramas, including the superb 2020 Berlin Golden Bear Winner There Is No Evil, make no qualms about tackling his country’s oppressive regime and religious theocracy head-on, pulling few punches in their depictions of a nation under siege.

This clearly explains why the director has been targeted by the Iranian authorities since 2010, when he was first arrested along with Jafar Panahi for shooting a movie in secret. After receiving a six-year prison sentence, he eventually got out on bail — only to be officially banned from leaving the country in 2017. He was arrested again in 2022, spent months in Tehran’s notorious Evin Prison, received an eight-year sentence in 2024 and finally decided to flee the country earlier this month, arriving just in time to premiere his latest film in Cannes.

In Universal Language, a man makes a journey to his childhood home and meets the family now living there––these are at least the broad strokes. The director is Matthew Rankin, a Canadian filmmaker whose work usually requires less-basic terms. In his previous film The Twentieth Century, Rankin reimagined the life of Canada’s longest-serving prime minister, William Lyon Mackenzie King, through a lens of German expressionism: a trippy Brazil with a masturbation complex. Much of the casting was done either cross-gender or color-blind: “In a school play you can have a Filipino Captain von Trapp and a transgender Artful Dodger and it’s fine,“ Rankin explained at the time. ”In film, I don’t understand why there’s this pressure to always link an actor to their exact demographic profile.”

For Universal Language, Rankin takes that idea to a different place: the Winnipeg of this film is, for wont...

In a surprising announcement, 51-year-old Iranian film director Mohammad Rasoulof will attend the premiere of “The Seed of the Sacred Fig” on Friday. The movie has one of the final competition slots and, unless it is an absolute dud, is a guarantee for one of the top awards considering the political statement it makes. As a direct result of making the movie, Rasoulof was sentenced to eight years in prison, had his property removed, and was due to receive a flogging. He fled the country on foot and is now somewhere in Europe.

Rasoulof, whose previous work includes “Manuscripts Don’t Burn,” “A Man of Integrity,” which won the top prize at Cannes’s Un Certain Regard sidebar, and “There Is No Evil,” which won the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival. All of his films are critical of contemporary Iranian society, with “There Is No Evil,” about capital punishment,...

Dissident Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof will be attending the Cannes world premiere of his latest work, “The Seed of the Sacred Fig,” having traveled to Europe clandestinely after receiving an eight-year prison sentence from the country’s authorities for making the film.

Rasoulof decided to leave Iran illegally and arrived in Europe a few days ago, shortly after being sentenced to eight years in prison and flogging by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Court. Iranian authorities also pressured the director to pull “The Seed of the Sacred Fig” from the Cannes Film Festival and harassed the film’s producers and actors.

“The Seed of the Sacred Fig” is screening at Cannes in competition on May 24 with Rasoulof in attendance, the film’s publicist confirmed.

“The Seed of the Sacred Fig,” according to the synopsis provided by sales company Films Boutique, centers on Iman — an investigating judge in the Revolutionary Court in...

There are plenty of North American filmmakers influenced by the giants of international cinema. These filmmakers import stylistic references, different tones and rhythms, perhaps key collaborators, such as a cinematographer, to films that nonetheless are born of their own local filmmaking cultures. For his second feature, following the anarchic political satire of his The Twentieth Century, Canadian director Matthew Rankin has imagined a different approach. His formally precise and very funny Universal Language, a Cannes’s Directors Fortnight discovery this year, is not only influenced by the Iranian cinema of Abbas Kiarostami and Jafar Panahi, among others, but considers a Winnipeg […]

The post “We Wanted to Film These Beige Structures the Way Terrence Malick Films a Sunset”: Director Matthew Rankin on the Canadian/Iranian Interzone of his Cannes-Premiering Universal Language first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

There are plenty of North American filmmakers influenced by the giants of international cinema. These filmmakers import stylistic references, different tones and rhythms, perhaps key collaborators, such as a cinematographer, to films that nonetheless are born of their own local filmmaking cultures. For his second feature, following the anarchic political satire of his The Twentieth Century, Canadian director Matthew Rankin has imagined a different approach. His formally precise and very funny Universal Language, a Cannes’s Directors Fortnight discovery this year, is not only influenced by the Iranian cinema of Abbas Kiarostami and Jafar Panahi, among others, but considers a Winnipeg […]

The post “We Wanted to Film These Beige Structures the Way Terrence Malick Films a Sunset”: Director Matthew Rankin on the Canadian/Iranian Interzone of his Cannes-Premiering Universal Language first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

“Woman Life Freedom” is making its debut in Cannes, which is bustling with activity thanks to the Cannes Film Festival 2024. The photo exhibition created by Fedra Fateh aims to celebrate the creativity and courage of 15 Iranian artists.

They include artists who have faced censorship, bans, and imprisonment. The only fault of these people – the exhibition reminds us – was to fight for freedom of expression and equality.

Born in Iran after the murder of Mahsa Amini by the morality police, the Women Life Freedom movement bears witness to the indomitable spirit of Iranian women. Each participating artist has faced various forms of repression for daring to demand freedom and dignity for the Iranian people.

“The Woman Life Freedom movement emerged from a specific time and place, yet its message is timeless and universal,” says Fateh. “The struggle for women’s rights and human rights impacts each one of us. Only if...

Chinese Xinjiang, Uyghur minority, Islam, forced marriage: sensitive enough keywords to ring the bell of contentious debates or trigger internet chats censorship. But I stop you right here: Nikah is not a political movie. Nikah is a contemporary coming-of-age tale set in a repressive backdrop. This is where fiction can sometimes surpass documentary, as it is not bound by considerations of witness accounts or ruled by “cinéma vérité” dogma. The camera serves a narrative here, not an agenda.

Nikah is screening at CAAMFest

Dilber is a 27-year-old Uyghur woman. It is now high time for her to get married. These two sentences are obviously charged with meaning. But Dilber is also a modern young adult whose life revolves around her mobile phone and social media, a window to the world, like most of young Chinese women of her age. So, when her friend Gulnur, living in Paris, proposes a long-distance...

In the Canadian cities of Montreal and Winnipeg, a futile tension exists between French and English speakers — doubly silly, since the country is officially bilingual. In his gently satirical “Universal Language,” writer-director Matthew Rankin imagines a rather fanciful solution, where Farsi is now the region’s dominant tongue. Taking his cues from such Iranian classics as “Children of Heaven” and “The White Balloon,” Rankin mixes the humanism of Majid Majidi, Jafar Panahi, et al. with his own peculiar brand of comedy (as seen in the more off-the-wall “The Twentieth Century”), offering a delightful cross-cultural hybrid designed to celebrate our differences.

Though Rankin shows a genuine affection for all things Persian, the first and most obvious hiccup to his premise is that audiences don’t necessarily share his interest or his references. There’s something inherently provocative — and perhaps even triggering to some — about seeing a nondescript Canadian elementary school where...

Kino Lorber is expanding its streaming footprint. The boutique art-house distributor just launched its own SVOD platform, the Kino Film Collection.

The new app is available now as a standalone service on Apple TV, Fire TV, Android TV, and Roku, and it will feature hundreds of movies from Kino Lorber’s film library of more than 4,000 titles. Subscriptions will begin at $5.99 per month.

In November 2023, Kino Lorber launched an Amazon Prime Video channel; you can still access its titles there. But having its own service puts the company in the race alongside other niche streaming options in the space, like the Criterion Channel ($10.99/month) or Mubi ($14.99/month).

As part of the launch, Kino Film Collection curated a selection of titles that showcase auteurs who have played at Cannes; the 2024 film festival is currently ongoing. The collection includes early movies from Yorgos Lanthimos, Jia Zhangke, and Ken Loach, as well as...

Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof has left Iran and traveled to Europe clandestinely after being sentenced to eight years in prison by the country’s authorities, who pressured him to pull his latest work “The Seed of the Sacred Fig” from the Cannes Film Festival and harassed the film’s producers and actors.

“We are very happy and much relieved that Mohammad has safely arrived in Europe after a dangerous journey,” said Jean-Christophe Simon, CEO of Films Boutique and Parallel45, who are distributing the film. “We hope he will be able to attend the Cannes premiere of ‘The Seed of the Sacred Fig’ in spite of all attempts to prevent him from being there in person.”

However, it remains unclear whether Rasoulof will be able to attend the Cannes world premiere of “Sacred Fig” on May 24, his Cannes publicist and French distributor also noted.

Rasoulov is among Iran’s most prominent...

Just days before he’d premiere his new film “The Seed of the Sacred Fig” in Competition at the Cannes Film Festival, director Mohammad Rasoulof has been sentenced to eight years in prison and flogging in Iran. He’ll also be subjected to a fine and the confiscation of property. The filmmaker has run afoul of the theocratic government there for years, and there’s some indication the timing of this extremely harsh sentence is coercion to remove the film from the festival altogether.

It’s easy to see why the authoritarian regime might be scared of Rasoulof’s latest work. “The Seed of the Sacred Fig Tree” is literally about a judge for the Revolutionary Court in Tehran dealing with the fallout from the nationwide protests that have swept the country in recent years, and he particularly succumbs to paranoia when his gun disappears.

The 51-year-old director has been hit with a severe sentence,...

Iran continues to be a site of unrest among dissident filmmakers protesting leadership and government under the country’s current president, Ebrahim Raisi. In 2022, Iranian filmmakers such as Jafar Panahi, Mohammad Rasoulof, and Mostafa Al-Ahmad were arrested over their responses to Iran’s censorship of events including a building collapse that killed at least 41, and later the death of Mahsa Amini, killed by Islamic police for allegedly not wearing her hijab.

The only Iranian film to premiere at Cannes 2023, the omnibus satire “Terrestrial Verses” also saw one of its directors, Ali Asgari, banned from leaving his country. You can understand why after you see this probing film about life under the eye of a controlling government.

IndieWire understands the travel ban on Asgari has since been lifted, though freedom of expression remains an issue in Iran for filmmakers querying the status quo. “Terrestrial Verses,” the film Asgari co-directed with Alireza Khatami,...

The awards ceremony for the 74th Berlin International Film Festival kicks off Saturday night, where this year’s jury, headed by 12 Years a Slave and Black Panther actress Lupita Nyong’o, will hand out the coveted Gold and Silver Bears.

Maryam Moghaddam and Behtash Sanaeeha’s Iranian drama My Favourite Cake is being given good odds for an award this year. The drama, about a 70-year-old widow and her tentative attempts at romance with an age-appropriate taxi driver, was a critical fave. A win for the film would also send a political message after the Iranian government banned the directors from attending Berlin. If the jury picks out Cake for the Golden Bear it would be the third time in 10 years —following Jafar Panahi’s Taxi (2015) and There Is No Evil (2020) from Mohammad Rasoulof —that Berlin has given its top honor to Iranian directors in absentia. World sales for My...

The Berlin Film Festival has called on Iran to allow directors Maryam Moghaddam and Behtash Sanaeeha to leave the country to attend the world premiere of their new film My Favorite Cake, which has been selected to screen in competition at the 74th Berlinale.

In a statement Thursday, the festival said that they have learned that Moghaddam and Sanaeeha have been banned from traveling, have had their passports confiscated by Iranian authorities, and face a court trial connected to their work as artists and filmmakers.

Maryam Moghaddam and Behtash Sanaeeha on the set of ‘My Favourite Cake’

“The Berlinale is a festival fundamentally committed to freedom of speech, freedom of expression and freedom of the arts, for all people around the world and the festival is shocked and dismayed to learn that Moghaddam and Sanaeeha could be prevented from traveling to the festival to present their film and meet their audience in Berlin,...

Totem Films, the Paris-based sales and production company known for arthouse breakouts such as “Compartment No. 6” and “Blackbird Blackbird Blackberry,” has boarded sales on “My Favourite Cake” by Maryam Moghaddam and Behtash Sanaeeha. The Iranian writing-directing duo’s latest feature was just announced in competition at the upcoming Berlinale.

The film stars newcomer Lily Farhadpour as Mahin and renowned Iranian actor Esmail Mehrabi as Faramarz.

Seventy-year-old Mahin lives alone, until she decides to break her solitary routine and revitalize her love life. But as she opens up to romance, an unexpected encounter quickly evolves into an unforgettable evening.

Moghaddam and Sanaeeha said: “’My Favourite Cake’ is based on the reality of the everyday lives of middle-class women in Iran. The realities of women’s lives in Iran have hardly ever been told, yet this is a playful tale about hope and joy in life, as well as the absurdity of death.

Following The Film Stage’s collective top 50 films of 2023, as part of our year-end coverage, our contributors are sharing their personal top 10 lists.

In all honesty, the films of 2023 should take a backseat to the images we are seeing every day in Gaza, where journalists and average citizens have been recording and documenting a daily assault on their homes and livelihoods by the Idf. Whatever fakery we watched and enjoyed in the cinema this year should always be kept in perspective in importance with images that are real and actually happening right now. The Palestinians who have documented these important images have been targeted and killed with intent and purpose to silence what their photos and videos are showing and saying.

List of journalists who have been killed.

The below is of lesser note:

Best First Watches:

Angel’s Egg La belle noiseuse Centipede Horror Charley Varrick Coffy Crimson Gold...

by Cláudio Alves

Superstar is my favorite new-to-me film of 2023. What's yours?

As the year draws to a close, it's time for reflection and hopes for the year to come. All over film publications, lists dominate, cataloging the best pictures of 2023, rushing to proclaim their champions before the ball drops. Here, however, let's do another exercise. Looking back at the past twelve months, I like to think about my favorite first-time watches of years gone by, classics and other sorts that were new to me, even if they were well known to everybody else. 

I think of Brian De Palma's Body Double, a perverse predilection I discovered on my travails through Erotic Thrillers. Then, there was Labyrinth of Cinema, Nobuhiko Obayashi's swan song, and a wild counterpoint to Nolan's Oppenheimer. While I wrote about those two, I have yet to mention my affection for Jafar Panahi's rebellious...

Some 30 film organizations, festivals and professionals as well as freedom of speech NGOs have signed an open letter calling on Iranian authorities to immediately drop all charges against directors Maryam Moghadam and Behtash Sanaeeha as well as lift a travel ban.

The signatories include the Berlinale, the Amsterdam-based International Coalition for Filmmakers at Risk, and Pen America in New York.

The filmmakers, whose last collaboration Ballad Of A White Cow made waves on the festival circuit, have become caught in the crosshairs of their country’s hardline Islamist regime in relation to their upcoming film My Favourite Cake.

The pair were due to fly to Paris in September to complete post-production on the feature, exploring “life behind closed doors of an aging woman who dares to live her desires in a country where women’s rights are heavily restricted.”

Their passports were confiscated at Tehran airport, however, and they were...

Nader Saeivar’s Iranian drama No End has been dropped from the official selection of the Hainan Island International Film Festival in what filmmakers say was an act of censorship by Chinese authorities.

ArtHood Entertainment, which is handling world sales for No End, told The Hollywood Reporter it received a confirmation from the Hainan Island festival on Nov. 19 that the Iranian drama had been picked to run in the main competition at the event. The 2023 Hainan festival runs Dec. 16-22 in the tropical resort city of Sanya in China’s southernmost province.

But this week, the festival has pulled the film, citing “political pressure and censorship laws of the Chinese government,” said ArtHood.

The Hainan festival is backed by the state-run China Media Group and the People’s Government of Hainan Province, under the guidance of the China Film Administration. The event’s competition jury this year includes international figures like...

Iranian directors Behtash Sanaeeha and Maryam Moghadam, whose last collaboration Ballad Of A White Cow made waves on the festival circuit, have been banned from travel and face a trial in relation to their upcoming film My Favourite Cake.

The pair discovered they were subject to a travel ban at Tehran airport at the end of September after their passports were confiscated as they went to catch a flight to Paris to work on post-production of the new film.

They were subsequently told that they faced a trial related to the production.

Local media reported that Iranian security forces had raided the house of the film’s editor, seizing rushes and other materials related to the production.

The country’s hard-line Islamist authorities are believed to have been angered by the work, which according to the official logline, revolves around the “life behind closed doors of an aging woman who...

Did the news of No Bears deservingly bagging the Special Jury Prize at the 2022 Venice Film Festival slightly brighten the cell Jafar Panahi is locked up? I doubt it would mean a whole lot to one of the greatest filmmakers of all time, whose voice has been reaching us secretly ever since the Iranian government banned him from pursuing his art in 2010. A cake to hide “This Is Not A Movie” and the covert, lionhearted efforts that went into making and sharing No Bears with the world are simply not the kind of harrowing ordeals a director like Panahi should be going through. Yet, for someone whose self-reflectively bold and politically charged artistic endeavors are perceived as a critical threat by the government, Panahi’s proved himself to be a warrior of sorts by never allowing the regime to muffle his voice. What I’ve never felt dampens the experience...

The pioneering French-Iranian producer and sales agent leaves behind a long-lasting legacy

Pioneering producer and celebrated Celluloid Dreams founder Hengameh Panahi died on November 5 following a long illness, sending shockwaves of sadness throughout the international film community and leaving a long-lasting legacy of both championing auteur cinema and shaking up the status quo in her wake.

The revered French-Iranian industry executive was known for finding and following emerging directors and accompanying their films to festival glory and international acclaim. Her career spanned four decades and more than 800 films.

She worked alongside iconic directors from across the globe including Jacques Audiard,...

News of the death of Celluloid Dreams CEO Hengameh Panahi has sparked an outpouring of admiration and tributes from the independent film community.

Panahi, a pivotal figure in the global art house scene, died Nov. 5, aged 67. In her decades in the business — as a producer, co-financier and sales agent — Panahi introduced the world to international auteurs from Iran (Jafar Panahi, Marjane Satrapi), Europe (Jacques Audiard, François Ozon, Gaspar Noé, Marco Bellocchio, Aleksandr Sokurov, the Dardenne brothers) and across Asia (Takeshi Kitano, Naomi Kawase, Jia Zanghke, Hirokazu Kore-eda).

“She took films that were challenging, that were difficult to make, to sell, to promote, and she fought for them,” says Oscar-winning producer Jeremy Thomas (The Last Emperor) who knew and worked with Panahi for more than 30 years. “She was a unique part of the film ecosystem. She was really inspirational, with the films that she enabled to be made, and seen.”

Celluloid Dreams,...

Hengameh Panahi, the French-Iranian producer and sales agent who founded Celluloid Dreams and was a pivotal figure in bringing works from such auteurs as Jacques Audiard, Jafar Panahi (no relation), François Ozon, Marjane Satrapi and Todd Haynes to the world, has died. She was 67.

Viviana Andriani, a press attaché who had worked with Panahi for many years, confirmed Thursday that Panahi died on November 5 after battling a long illness.

Celluloid Dreams, which Panahi launched in 1985, was a groundbreaking sales and production company that helped build the global market for international arthouse films. Over the course of three decades, Paris-based Celluloid helped package and sell more than 800 films, including the first works from François Ozon (See The Sea), Gaspar Noé (I Stand Alone), Marjane Satrapi (Persepolis) and Bruno Dumont (The Life of Jesus), among many others.

Alongside many European talents, Panahi, who was born in Iran but moved to Europe aged...

Hengameh Panahi, the celebrated French-Iranian producer who founded Celluloid Dreams and forged long-standing bonds with auteurs around the world, has died. She was 67.

Panahi, who worked with the likes of Jafar Panahi, Jacques Audiard, Hirokazu Kore-eda and Jia Zhangke, died on Nov. 5 after battling a long illness, according to a statement sent by a film publicist who worked with Panahi for many years.

Panahi was born in Iran and lived in Belgium from the age of 12 before moving to France in 1993. That’s where she founded the sales company Celluloid Dreams and played a major role in co-producing, co-financing and selling international rights to a number of politically minded films, such as Panahi’s Berlinale Golden Bear-winning “Taxi Tehran”; Audiard’s “A Prophet” and his Palme d’Or winning “Dheepan”; Ramin Mohseni’s ”From Afar”; Marjane Satrapi’s “Persepolis” and “Chicken With Plums”; and Iranian master Abbas Kiarostami’s “Where...

Panahi founded international sales company Celluloid Dreams in 1993.

Hengameh Panahi, a leading light of the international film sales industry over the past three decades, has died aged 67.

French-Iranian Panahi died on November 5 after a long illness, according to press agent Viviana Andriani, who handled campaigns for several films sold by Panahi.

Iranian-born executive Panahi attended the Jeanne D’Arc French School in Tehran prior to the 1979 revolution. She moved to Belgium aged 12, where she studied journalism, and founded Celluloid Dealers in 1985.

The company was relaunched as Celluloid Dreams upon Panahi’s move to Paris in 1993. Over the following three decades...

Groundbreaking French-Iranian sales agent and producer Hengameh Panahi, who represented a myriad of renowned Cannes and Venice prize-winning auteur directors, has died at the age of 67.

Paris-based press attaché Viviana Andriani, who handled press campaigns for a number of Panahi’s films, announced the news in a short communiqué.

She said Panahi had died on November 5 after bravely battling a long illness.

Panahi was a force to be reckoned with on the international film industry circuit, who launched dozens of renowned arthouse directors at the beginning of their careers and accompanied them as they won awards and fame.

Born in Iran, Panahi was sent to Belgium to complete her education as teenager.

She got her first big break in the film industry as head of international at Brussels-based animation studio Graphoui.

In an early sign of her flare for scouting promising talent, Panahi connected with John Lasseter and Tim Burton...

Tree-lined alleys, autumn leaves enveloping the ground beneath, underground gatherings resounding with music and singing, a lone woman protester being pushed by the police. But what remains constant in this collage of Iran, is poetry haunting and evocative. With words, with silence.

Filmmaker Sreemoyee Singh’s documentary ‘And, Towards Happy Alleys’ screened to a full house during the ongoing Dharamshala International Film Festival (Diff), one of India’s finest festivals, goes beyond the young filmmaker’s fascination with Iranian cinema and poet Forugh Farrokhzad, and takes a deep dive into contemporary the Iranian society much divorced from the western gaze at the country.

Created as part of a Ph.D thesis about Iranian new wave cinema, the movie sees the Kolkata-based Singh, who learned Farsi at Tehran University in conversation and singing with master filmmakers like Jafar Panahi and Mohammad Shirvani.

“I am a literature student who fell in love with Iranian poetry,...

Tree-lined alleys, autumn leaves enveloping the ground beneath, underground gatherings resounding with music and singing, a lone woman protester being pushed by the police. But what remains constant in this collage of Iran, is poetry haunting and evocative. With words, with silence.

Filmmaker Sreemoyee Singh’s documentary ‘And, Towards Happy Alleys’ screened to a full house during the ongoing Dharamshala International Film Festival (Diff), one of India’s finest festivals, goes beyond the young filmmaker’s fascination with Iranian cinema and poet Forugh Farrokhzad, and takes a deep dive into contemporary the Iranian society much divorced from the western gaze at the country.

Created as part of a Ph.D thesis about Iranian new wave cinema, the movie sees the Kolkata-based Singh, who learned Farsi at Tehran University in conversation and singing with master filmmakers like Jafar Panahi and Mohammad Shirvani.

“I am a literature student who fell in love with Iranian poetry,...

Documentary director Jeff Kaufman has given an update on the situation for detained award-winning Iranian human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh following an in-depth call with her husband Reza Khandan.

Kaufman and his casting director and producer wife Marcia Ross became close with Khandan while making their 2020 Olivia Colman-narrated documentary Nasrin.

The immersive work follows Sotoudeh’s battle to defend human rights in the face of abuses by Iran’s hardline Islamic Republic regime.

“This morning we had an in-depth conversation with Nasrin’s indefatigable husband Reza Khandan. He authorized us to release this update,” wrote Kaufman in a note sent out on Monday evening.

Sotoudeh was among a number of women arrested at the funeral on October 29 of tragic Tehran teenager Armita Geravand, who went into a coma and died after allegedly being assaulted by the country’s morality police for not wearing Iran’s obligatory veil.

The detainees...

Explore where to stream the best films of 2023.

Each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit streaming platforms in the United States. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.

Drylongso (Cauleen Smith)

Writer-director Cauleen Smith made Drylongso when she was in college, 25 years ago, premiering at Sundance in 1998. She has gone on to create dozens of short films, art installations, and more experimental work, focused on similar themes of feminism, racial violence, and Black communities. The low-key hangout movie should have been a stepping stone for Smith, but, as with many other works by Black female filmmaking of the last half-century, it fell out of circulation. – Michael F. (full interview)

Where to Stream: The Criterion Channel

Fingernails (Christos Nikou)

Is love quantifiable? No, but that doesn’t stop Greek filmmaker Christos Nikou from exploring that question over two dull, excruciating hours in Fingernails,...

Updated November 2… Fears are growing for the health of detained Iranian human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh following fresh details of the violent circumstances of her arrest and current physical condition.

Sotoudeh was among several women who were arrested at the funeral in Tehran on Sunday of teenager Armita Geravand, who died after allegedly being assaulted as they arrested her for not wearing Iran’s obligatory veil.

Sotoudeh’s husband, Reza Khandan has revealed that a group of some 50 police and security personnel charged at the mourners gathered at the funeral, beating some and dragging others across gravestones as they were arrested.

Following a subsequent prison visit, Khandan reported that Sotoudeh had said that she was covered in bruises, that the back of her head remained swollen, and that she was experiencing a prolonged headache.

New York-based freedom of expression champion Pen called on the Iranian authorities to transfer Sotoudeh access to hospital withou delay.

Film geeks, rejoice. Leading indie label Kino Lorber is entering the world of streaming. The company has launched Kino Film Collection, a new subscription video service available in the U.S. via’s Amazon’s Prime Video Channels. The Collection will feature new Kino releases fresh from theaters, along with hundreds of films from its expansive library of more than 4,000 titles, many now streaming for the first time. It will cost users $5.99 per month.

Films available at launch include award-winning theatrical releases and critically acclaimed festival favorites and classics from around the globe, such as The Conformist (Bernardo Bertolucci), Dogtooth (Yorgos Lanthimos), Taxi (Jafar Panahi), Poison (Todd Haynes), Ganja & Hess (Bill Gunn), The Scent of Green Papaya (Tran Anh Hung), A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (Ana Lily Amirpour), Computer Chess (Andrew Bujalski), Portrait of Jason (Shirley Clarke), and A Touch of Sin (Jia Zhangke).

Joining them are entries...

Kino Lorber, a leading name in the indie film scene for over 45 years, just launched the Kino Film Collection. This new streaming service is available in the U.S. on Amazon via Prime Video Channels for $5.99 per month. The platform will feature new Kino films fresh from their theatrical release along with hundreds of catalog titles. Many of these films will be available to stream for the first time.

Among the films available will be a new 4K restoration of Bernardo Bertolucci’s “The Conformist” and key titles like Yorgos Lanthimos’ “Dogtooth,” Jafar Panahi’s “Taxi,” Todd Haynes’ “Poison,” and Ana Lily Amirpour’s “A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night.”

Among the older titles available to stream will be classics like Fritz Lang’s “Metropolis,” F.W. Murnau’s “Nosferatu,” Robert Wiene’s “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari,” and Sergei Eisenstein’s “Battleship Potemkin.” The Kino Film Collection will be...

Kino Lorber has launched a new subscription streaming outlet, Kino Film Collection.

The $6-a-month destination for recent theatrical releases and hundreds of other films drawn from the company’s vast library will be available in the U.S. on Prime Video Channels.

Kino Lorber also operates Kino Now, a platform for rentals and purchases of arthouse and specialty films. The company has made several streaming moves of late. In 2022, it acquired MHz Choice and installed AMC Networks veteran Ed Carroll and former IFC Films head Lisa Schwartz in key management roles. Schwartz, Kino Lorber’s Chief Revenue Officer, will oversee Kino Film Collection. Last spring, Kino Lorber also formed a joint venture with First Look Media to operate both MHz Choice and First Look’s streaming service Topic.

Films available on Kino Film Collection at launch include new 4K restorations of The Conformist as well as key works by contemporary...

Independent film distributor Kino Lorber has officially unveiled streaming service Kino Film Collection, available via Prime Video here.

The Kino Film Collection will be launched in the U.S. on the Amazon Service via Prime Video Channels for $5.99 per month. The Collection will feature new Kino releases fresh from theaters, along with hundreds of films from its expansive library of more than 4,000 titles, with many now streaming for the first time.

New 4K restorations of films like Bernardo Bertolucci’s “The Conformist,” Yorgos Lanthimos’ “Dogtooth,” Jafar Panahi’s “Taxi,” Todd Haynes’ “Poison,” Tran Anh Hung’s “The Scent of Green Papaya,” Ana Lily Amirpour’s “A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night,” and Jia Zhangke’s “A Touch of Sin” are among highlights of the first offerings from Kino Film Collection.

Kino canon films like Fritz Lang’s historic “Metropolis,” F.W. Murnau’s “Nosferatu,” Robert Wiene’s “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari,...

Iranian producer Elaheh Nobakht, whose credits include “Dream’s Gate,” the doc depicting an all-female Kurdish militia that launched earlier this year from Berlin, has been banned by Iranian authorities from traveling outside the country.

Nobakht – who is a board member of the Iranian Producers Association (Ipa) and of the Iranian Documentary Producer Association (Aoidp) – was stopped by security guards in early August upon re-entering Iran from a film presentation in Portugal at Tehran’s Imam Khomeini airport. The guards confiscated her passport, laptop and mobile phone, according to a knowledgeable source. No reason has been given for this action.

Due to the travel ban Nobakht has been unable to travel from Iran to Armenia’s Apricot Tree Film Festival, where she had been selected to serve as a member of the jury, and to Spain’s San Sebastian fest. Nobakht, who is a fixture on the international film festival circuit,...

The film is inspired by one of Turkey’s most bloody political massacres, which took place in 1978.

Turkish filmmaker and Berlinale regular Burak Cevik has completed shooting his nextt film Nothing In Its Place, a drama that focuses on one of Turkey’s most bloody political massacres.

Cevik’s The Pillar Of Salt (2018), Belonging (2019) and Forms Of Forgetting (2023) each premiered in the Berlinale Forum.

Inspired by a true story, Nothing In Its Place follows a group of five leftist youths in 1978 who believed in an unarmed socialist revolution. In the middle of the night, two right-wing youths raid their meeting and decide to kill them.

Naghdipari was detained during street protests marking the anniversary of Mahsa Amini’s death in police custody.

The International Coalition for Filmmakers and at Risk (Icfr) and leading Iranian director Jafar Panahi have demanded the release of Iranian set and costume designer Leila Naghdipari.

Naghdipari was one of hundreds of Iranians detained earlier this month amid street protests in the country marking the anniversary of Mahsa Amini’s death in police custody.

Her credits include Panahi’s Cannes competition film 3 Faces and Abbas Amini’s Valderrama.

The Ifcr and its founding institutions, the International Film Festival Rotterdam, International Documentary...

Dissident Iranian director Jafar Panahi has launched an impassioned appeal for production designer Leila Naghdipari to be released from jail following her recent arrest during demonstrations marking the one year anniversary of Mahsa Amini’s death.

Naghdipari was one of hundreds of Iranians arrested on Sept. 16 during widespread protests marking the anniversary of Amini’s death while being detained for allegedly violating the country’s hijab law that mandates covered hair.

“Today, Iranian independent cinema is more that ever struggling to breathe under the boots of the security forces,” Panahi said in his appeal.

Panahi added that it’s been more than 10 days since the arrest of Naghdipari, who was the production designer on his 2018 film “Three Faces,” a road trip through the repressive territory of patriarchal rural Iran. Panahi shot the film, which screened at the Cannes Film Festival, in violation of his 20-year filmmaking ban.

“All the efforts of her husband Majid Barzegar,...

Executive most recently was VP of production at Impact Partners.

Amplify Pictures has appointed veteran documentary producer and recent VP of production at Impact Partners Lauren Haber to the new role of head of documentary.

Haber is based in New York and reports to Amsterdam-based Rachel Eggebeen, who announced the hire on Wednesday and is Amplify Pictures’ chief content officer overseeing the scripted and unscripted slate, including the eight-time Emmy-nominated HBO docuseries 100 Foot Wave.

In her new role Haber will oversee Amplify’s slate of documentary projects and expand the portfolio through universally appealing commercial projects with an emphasis...