This Is Not a Film
Contemporary Cinema
•
1h 14m
Directed by Jafar Panahi | 75 mins | 2011
Placed on house arrest by the Iranian government and forbidden from any further filmmaking activity for the following 20 years, Panahi used the slender resources at his command—his own apartment as a “set,” the aide of friends, including credited co-director Mojtaba Mirtahmasb, who could handle the iPhone camera and thereby keep Panahi from violating his punishment on a technicality—to produce one of the crucial works of the 2010s, a portrait of an artist physically confined but spiritually unbowed, catching up with peers and with his own work, and still passionately engaged with the world from which he’s been cut off. “[A] brave and witty video diary, an essay on the struggle between tyranny and the creative imagination.” —The New York Times
Up Next in Contemporary Cinema
-
3 Faces
Directed by Jafar Panahi | 100 mins | 2018
Panahi’s fourth post-filmmaking ban feature begins with a smartphone video of a young woman (Marziyeh Rezaei) who, forbidden by her parents to pursue her dream of acting professionally, appears to take her own life. The video is addressed to Behnaz Jafar... -
No Sleep Till
Directed by Alexandra Simpson | 93 mins | 2024
The threat of an impending hurricane has sent most of the residents of and visiting tourists to the coastal Florida town of Atlantic Beach scurrying for cover—but Simpson’s ravishing mood piece lingers behind with a handful of holdouts ignoring the m...
