Jafar Panahi - 'It Was Just an Accident'

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0:23Hi everyone and thank you for joining us for the 601st episode of the Hollywood Reporters Awards Chatter Podcast. I'm the host, Scott Feinberg, and my guest today is an Iranian writer and director who has been a key figure in the Iranian new wave and is one of only four filmmakers, the others being Henri-Georges Clouseau, Michelangelo Antonioni, and Robert Altman, who was awarded the top prize at each of the three biggest European film festivals. In his case, Venice's Golden Lion for his 2000 film The Circle, Berlin's Golden Bear for his 2015 film Taxi, and earlier this year, Cannes' Palme d 'Or for It Was Just an Accident, which was just chosen as the French submission for the Best International Feature Oscar competition.

1:06A man who has been persecuted by the Iranian regime, which has at times banned him from making films and thrown him in jail, but who has nevertheless continued to make bold and daring films about social issues in his homeland, leading the New York Times to describe him as a humanist in a theocracy. The Guardian, to call him the world's most quietly defiant cineast, and the Los Angeles Times to describe him as not just one of Iran's top filmmakers, but also its most politically outspoken. The great Jafar Panahi. Over the course of a conversation at the offices of Elevation Pictures in Toronto, during Panahi's visit to the Toronto International Film Festival, the 65-year-old and I, assisted by his translator, Shada Dayani, discussed how he came to be mentored by and work alongside the great Iranian filmmaker of an earlier generation, the late Abbas Kiarostami.

2:00why, starting with the circle, the Iranian regime began closely monitoring and not infrequently impeding his work, what his outlook was after he was arrested in 2010 and sentenced to six years in jail, banned from making films, banned from giving interviews, and banned from leaving Iran for 20 years, and why, even after being released but subject to being brought back to fulfill his sentence at any time, he dared to keep making films, most notably 2011's This Is Not a Film, how his interactions with an interrogator during his second stint in jail in 2022 helped to inspire It Was Just an Accident, which then became only the second Iranian film to win Cannes Palme d 'Or, 28 years after Kiarostami's Taste of Cherry became the first, plus much more.

2:52And so without further ado, let's go to that conversation.

2:58Mr. Penai, thank you so much for doing this. Honored to have you on our podcast. And on this podcast, we go back to the very beginning and work our way to the present. So to begin with, can you share for anyone who may not know where you were born and raised and what your parents did for a living?

3:17I was born in Tehran in a working class family in south of Tehran. Usually people who do not have a lot of money are in the south of the city that is called downtown of Tehran. And those who have more are in the north of the city. We were four sisters, three brothers, and our father was a painter in the construction business. In the summer times when we were off from school, I used to go with my father and help him. Our biggest fun back then was to go to the movie theater. And the movie theater was quite far from where we lived. We had to take the bus and sometimes in order to save money, we would just walk for half an hour to an hour.

4:08Any money we got from our parents to pay for food, we would just save and go to the movie theater. And sometimes we even cut school and went to the cinema. There was also a library in our neighborhood that belonged to the Center for the Intellectual Development of Children and Adolescents in Iran. And we used to go to the library and borrow some books. This was a very important act that had happened by the Queen of Iran, by Farah Diba. These libraries of the Center for the Intellectual Development of Children and Adolescents also showed short films that were made on negative 8mm films back then.

4:56Also at the library itself, there was a team that themselves made short films. At that library, there was once a story writing contest, and my story won the first prize. So I got to be known at that library, but the most attention that I got was because I was a very chubby boy. And they suggested one day that I would act in a film. They asked me if I would like to act in a film only because I was overweight. I said, why not? And that's how I started acting in a film. The story of the film was about a chubby boy and a thin boy who played the game of alak-dolak together. And this game means that you put a bigger stick under a smaller stick and you throw the smaller stick with the bigger stick.

5:53And for as long as the small stick goes, that's when one of the kids would go stand there and carry the other kid back. Anytime I had to carry the thin kid, of course, it was easy, no problem. Anytime he had to carry me, that's when the disaster started. So he had to carry me on his back and he couldn't do that. So at that point, there was a construction site that he would go to and find a wagon. He would throw me in the wagon and carry me with it instead of carrying me. This entire time when we were shooting, I really, really wanted to see the world through the lens of the camera. But we had quite a stingy cinematographer who would not let me look into the camera.

6:42And this urge, this curiosity to see the world through the camera made me want to, again, save some of my money and buy a photography camera. I bought the photography camera. I graduated from high school and the war, the Iran-Iraq war broke. And during the war, I used to shoot at the front. My curiosity for cinema continued, so when I took the university entrance exam, I was accepted into the major cinema. I studied directing, and at the same time, because I was quite curious and I used to be everywhere, I became an assistant director for about one or two films. This is when I started my work in cinema professionally.

7:40Before we get into you working as an assistant director, I want to go back because you, I believe, were born in 1960. You're old enough to remember 1979, I'm sure, quite clearly. for people who, you know, were not there or may not know, how would you say day-to-day life for you and for, you know, people you knew in Iran changed in 1979?

8:11Well, I was a high school student, and I also used to work at the same time. When the revolution was in the making, work was not always happening. Sometimes we had to cancel projects and cancel work, but my father had to continue working no matter what. I remember the day that the revolutionaries announced they had succeeded. We canceled work. We got out. We were hearing gunshots everywhere. and we saw that people on the street were carrying arms. But of course, a few months before that, there were protests everywhere and in all schools usually. And in our school also, there was a protest and school was closed.

9:03There were protests, obviously ongoing demonstrations, ongoing daytime, nighttime, everywhere. So I guess it was a year after the revolution, You're 20, you go into the army. And for two years, I know you've said you were making documentaries there. One of them was shown on national television. It was, you know, your works being seen. But you come back from that, go to college of cinema and TV in Tehran, as you mentioned. And I think it was there that something kind of important happened. because how were you able to access films and watch films that other people would not have been able to see at that time?

9:51I think that was an influential thing for you to be able to see films that were now banned, right? I was 18 when I went to the Army, and we were the first group of soldiers right after the revolution. When I was at the university, I also used to work at their archive. And we were, with a group of other people, we were searching for finding more films for that archive. Back then, owning those films was completely banned. And anywhere that owned those films had hidden them. Any places, institutions, organizations that we visited and asked for films wanted to give us their VHS copies of films. But they also asked for a document from the university that would prove that they're not doing anything illegal if in a few days they were questioned and they didn't want to get into any trouble.

10:58So they asked us to get a document from the, get a letter from the university that said this is simply for cultural preservations. Back then, I was really into Hitchcock's work. And I was trying to find every film, a copy of every film of his. I remember that we didn't have Hitchcock's rope. So my entire issue had become how to find it and how to get a copy to the archive. Eventually, I found Rope as well, and we had an almost complete archive of anything that Hitchcock had made. We also used to exchange with the other universities, with students of the other universities, our friends who were there.

11:49We would talk about what copies we had, what films they had, and we made each other's copies so that we could complete each other's archives. That is exactly when I can say I learned the alphabet of cinema from Hitchcock's films. Even though I didn't know English, I would just watch the films, and that's how I learned to make films. So you graduated, I think, in 1988. I know you made some short films and television documentaries and things, but I feel like the big key moment in that time is you connected with the great Iranian filmmaker from an earlier generation, Abbas Kurasami. How did you two first meet and not only connect, but begin collaborating, which is what resulted in, I know, your first feature film, The White Balloon.

12:44But how did that even, how did that evolve? It was quite simple. I learned that he was making a film called Through the Olive Trees. I found his phone number. I called him. I let him know that I have graduated from filmmaking and that I am now a director at the state TV. I have made a few short films and I have been an assistant director before for some other people. And I left a message and I let him know that I would like to work with him. I called a few times. Eventually we met once and he told me that they are about to go to the north of Iran with a minibus and he asked me to join the group.

13:31I was not given any title. I was just going along to see if I could help them in any way. We got there and the next day we were talking about preparing the set. I was just standing there in a corner. He was speaking with his DP and his sound person. And I heard them say that it's going to take them about a day to prepare the stage. And I wanted to show myself. I wanted to use the opportunity to prove myself. So I just set something. I said, go and give me some resources and come back at 4 p.m. I worked really hard. I prepared the set and they arrived exactly at 4 and they saw that everything is ready.

14:22So I started working as his assistant and he realized that I do have a lot of potential. He saw that I work hard. And at the end of the shooting of this film, because he had seen my potential, he invited me to help with the editing and with the post-production of the film. And then I told him that I also have a project and I would like to make a short film. He asked me about the topic of the film and I said that it's about the Noruz celebrations. It happens in the Noru's celebrations. It's about a little girl who loses his money and so forth. And that's how, because he wanted me, partly because he wanted me to stay and partly because he had seen my potential, he called the TV and said to them that I know the skills of this person and I know that he can turn this into a feature film.

15:27so I will write the script myself let him stay here and then after we finish shooting my project and after we finish the post-production of my project I will write the script and we will turn this into a feature film so that project The White Balloon I know it ended up as you described it but as a feature and I just want our listeners to know was, it was as a first film for you accepted into Cannes. You won the camera door at Cannes. It was submitted by Iran and then they tried to take it back for the Oscar, but it was submitted. Suddenly you're a major filmmaker on the, on the map. And I just wonder, did that actually make things easier or harder for you as you tried to make your next film, you know, that you were now somebody who, in other words, was it helpful or a hindrance to have a higher profile as a filmmaker in Iran after The White Balloon?

16:36I made The White Balloon and The Mirror, and these were the two films with children in them, and there wasn't any issues until I got to the making of this circle. Then as soon as I gave the script of the circle to the Ministry of Guidance, that's when all the problems started. If you want to make a film, you have to get the permission of the Ministry of Guidance. I had already submitted my script. It had been seven or eight months, but they were not responding and they were not giving me permission. At the same time, the press was making some noise about this because they had realized that I had received the golden camera prize at Cannes with my first film, and with my second film, I had received the golden prize of Locarno.

17:32And they were questioning the ministry for why this permit is taking so long. Because of the media putting pressure during this time that Khatami, that President Khatami was in office and there was a liberal government in office. And there was less suppression going on. The media was able to put enough pressure so that the permit was issued and I could make The Circle. I knew what I had made, so I immediately hid some copies of the film, and I took one copy to the office of the FADG Film Festival, because the other festivals around the world would go to that office and choose films. Can I just interrupt for our listeners so they know, as you say, the first two films had been about children.

18:33The third one, The Circle, follows several women who have been released from prison on the same day and now what's going on in that day in their lives and other women as well. But the fact that it was about women on the margins of society is why you were concerned that you would need to hide copies and things like that? Yes, I'm getting to it. Sorry. I took the film to the FATCH office, and as soon as they saw the film, everything turned upside down. They did not allow this film to play at FATCH Film Festival, but the directors of other, of international film festivals were there, and they had heard that I had made a film.

19:26So I invited them to my home and I showed them the film in private. The next day, Alberto Barbera from the Venice Film Festival gave me an invitation to submit my film to Venice. But now the problem was, how are we going to send the film out of Iran? Because back then, films were on negative and they were in huge boxes. We had to submit them again to the Ministry of Guidance. and they had to watch the film and tell us what to add and what to delete. And I was not going to do that. I was not going to do that because it would cut up the film. Until one day Mohsen Mahmalbov called me and asked me if I was able to finally send my film out.

20:14And I said, no. So he said, bring the negatives to my office. He put the negatives of the film Circle in the boxes of his own film, Gapé. And Gapé didn't have any trouble leaving Giron. So that's how we sent my film Circle outside. So Circle was in 2000. And then your next two films, Crimson Gold in 2003 and Offside in 2006, also dealt with social problems, social conscience issues in Iran. Just for listeners, Crimson Gold, a troubled veteran of the Iran-Iraq war who gets into a violent situation, now working as a pizza delivery man, offside about young women sneaking into football matches where they are not allowed by posing as men.

21:14These are things that I know were inspired by actual events. They were certainly about real problems in Iran. Were you at any point, though, thinking that by making films like Circle, Crimson Gold, and Offside, that there could be the kind of reaction that there was around 2009 and And then in 2010, where you really started to face persecution for speaking out. I know that they would claim that in 2009, it was supposedly because you had attended the, you were banned from leaving around for attending the funeral of a student killed in the Green Revolution protest. Then in 2010, they claimed that you were arrested because you were supposedly going to make a documentary about the election, which they didn't like.

22:07But I mean, it seems like it's really about the fact that it was really about the fact that you were being critical of aspects of Iranian society, isn't it? So I guess the short version, sorry, is when you were making these films about social issues in Iran, did it ever occur to you that you might be jeopardizing your own freedom or that your own freedom might be at risk? No, I really was not thinking in such realms. I was only thinking that I have to make these films and it is my right to make these films. And I was only choosing the topics based on what is going to be a good cinematic film and what is going to be needed.

22:59Of course, I knew that there is no way they're going to screen these films. but I considered it my duty to record these events and what was happening in my films under any circumstances for any price. After Offside, I had another script that I wanted to make, and I tried for five years to get a permit to make it, and they did not allow me to do that. The film was about war, meaning from 2006 to 2011, I was trying to make a film. That is when I realized that they're not going to allow me to make films and they have problems with me. And that's when I also announced that going forward, I will not be receiving, I will not be asking for permission to make films because no one is in the place to tell me what to make.

23:58so on the night when you were arrested march 1st 2010 i know it was you and i think 15 other people at your home they just showed up was the project that you were just describing about uh was that the one that you were discussing that evening i know that night you it was not just you arrested but your family muhammad rasulov who people in the united states may best know for the film that he He was nominated for at the Oscars, I think, earlier this year, the seat of the sacred fig. But he'd already, like you, been established in Iran. What was actually going on that was made to seem like it was a crime on the night of March 1st, 2010, when they came into your home?

24:46When I announced that I am no longer going to ask for a permit, it was already 10 days after the shooting of our first underground film with Mohamed Rasulov. And it was already a few months after the very intense political turmoil that Iran was experiencing post the 2009 presidential elections. And that's when they raided our home. Because we had already decided and we were already working on an underground film. We had started founding the underground cinema in Iran, but because we did not have any experiences and because we had not taken any security measures, they were able to raid our home and take us.

25:46They took me, my wife, my daughter, and all of my team, and they took us all to Evin prison. Two days later, they freed my wife and my daughter and a few members of the team. Then it was myself, Mohamed Rasulouf, and another person who stayed in jail. And it was about 15 days later, right before the Nouru celebrations, the new year, when they freed up Mohamed Rasulouf. Perhaps they were thinking, because everything is happening in my home and all the shooting took place there too, they needed to take me longer. until one day I got into a conflict in the prison and I decided to go on a hunger strike.

26:35And that's when they decided to let me go. I don't exactly remember, maybe around 80 days after 80 days. I read 86 days and then I think two days after you, something like that after you, it was known that you were on the hunger strike, they released you. I just want to note for our listeners that it was reported at the time, quote, the space given to Jafar Panahi's festival awards in Tehran's Museum of Cinema is much larger than his cell in prison, close quote, which is crazy. But before you were released because of the hunger strike, I mean, you had been sentenced. The sentence was six years in jail, banned from making movies, banned from giving interviews, banned for 20 years from leaving the country.

27:22As far as you knew at that time, you were going to be there for six years, not 86 days. When you got that sentence, were you shocked, despondent? What was your outlook at that time? No,

27:38they had not given me a sentence yet when they freed me. After they freed me, then there was a trial. And I was given two prison sentences, one for one year. and one for five years. And they were each for two separate things. One was negative propaganda against the regime. And the second one was endangering national security. And then they gave me four 20-year bans for any activities, filmmaking, leaving Iran, anything that had to do with my work. Meaning I left prison and then a few months later there was a trial and then I received these sentences. But you were not required to come back to prison.

28:32They stayed it or, you know, that's the, I guess the American term. But like it was, yeah, I think they put a stay that they could enforce the sentence at any time. but for now you were just under, not just, but you were under house arrest basically. Is that correct? No, I was never under house arrest. I could go anywhere in my own country. I just could not leave Iran. After they gave me the sentence, because there was a lot of pressure and a lot of noise about it, they didn't know when there is a good time for them to execute it. They were just waiting for the right moment to take me back to prison.

29:14Because when the sentence itself came out on the media, it created a lot of noise and everyone was wondering what a stupid sentence this is. How can you tell a filmmaker not to make films? The sentence they had given me, banning me for 20 years from making any films, really made me wonder what it is that I'm going to do if not making films, because that's the only thing I knew how to do. And so that's when I got together with my friend, Muchtabo Mirtamos. And we were at my home and we thought about making the film. And because of that sentence, we called this film, this is not a film. I think most people who have just been in jail for 86 days and who were facing the possibility of having to go back for six years would have been scared to do anything that was even close to violating the terms of their being free.

30:20What you did for the next more than a decade, that's what I think makes it people, of course, it makes it all the more remarkable that in a way you were not just refusing to stop making films, but it was, it feels like you were almost daring them to do something about it. Right. Because so it's, this is not a film 2011 shot in your apartment, no screenplay, but you know, basically technically not directed by you, but clearly a film. Closed Curtain 2013 in Lake House. Again, not, I guess, just skirting. It's not a film, quote unquote, Taxi. It's a camera in a taxi, 2015. You could say it's not a film technically.

31:11Three Faces 2018, similar, No Bears 2022. You don't go over the border, but you're at the Turkey-Iran border. My point is, like, again, most people would be scared into take up another hobby or something. Weren't you concerned that by continuing to do these things, like, this is not a film, it gets out to a film festival, wasn't that almost daring them to come send you to jail? No, what I was concerned about was not being able to work. What I was concerned about was not working. So I was constantly looking for ways to find a way to make films again. I remember around the time that I was making This Is Not a Film, students would come to me and they would constantly complain that the situation is difficult, we are not able to make the films we want, and we're dealing with a lot of limitations.

32:15But when I made my film, This Is Not a Film, I showed a way that no matter what, you have to find a solution. And after that film, I didn't have any other students coming and complaining that they cannot make a film. The issue was finding the way to make the film. That's the concern. And were you being hassled when you made? Or were people threatening you? that anything that during these years of this is not a film, closed curtain, taxi, three faces, no bears, all these films that are being made at a time when you're banned from making films, was there any indication until July 2022 when you were again arrested that you were upsetting people who might want to do something to you about it?