Few filmmakers have risked as much in the name of their art as Jafar Panahi, who has continued to make films of immense resourcefulness and humanism, and often humor too, despite the 20-year filmmaking ban imposed on him by the Iranian government, plus travel bans and the recurring threat of imprisonment. The 2025 Palme d’Or triumph of "It Was Just an Accident"—which saw Panahi revelling in his return to an expanded fictional realm, in contrast to the typically constrained worlds of his covertly made docufictions—was a cause for celebration cut short by the United States’ bombing of Iran just one month later. This selection brings together two of Panahi’s already masterful early films, "The Circle" and "Crimson Gold" (the latter penned by his mentor, Abbas Kiarostami), which fold cutting social commentary into their taut narratives, with "Closed Curtain" (2011), perhaps his darkest and most surreal work.