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CLOSED CURTAIN (PARDE) World Cinema

Description

Jafar Panahi continues to defy Iran’s brutal 20-year ban on his right to make films with CLOSED CURTAIN, an allegorical narrative that takes aim at his country’s oppressive laws. It is an emotional piece of meta-fiction, examining the director’s government-imposed artistic frustration. Initially, the film casts a critical eye on an Islamic law declaring dogs impure and illegal to own. Its protagonist is an old man hiding from authorities with his pet at a secluded beach house. Two young fugitives force their way in. Panahi creates palpable tension with this scenario, and then punches a hole right through it when he appears on camera himself, revealing the characters in this story to be the vivid creations of his own imagination. Ultimately an anguished cry for a means of fully realized creative expression, the film is also a formally daring and fiercely intelligent work of civil disobedience.

Bios

A key filmmaker of the Iranian New Wave, Jafar Panahi is currently under house arrest following his 2010 prison sentence and 20-year ban on filmmaking. His movies, such as THE CIRCLE, OFFSIDE (AFI FEST 2006) and his covertly made THIS IS NOT A FILM (AFI FEST 2011) have been internationally lauded for their social consciousness. Kamboziya Partovi was born in 1955 in Iran, where he studied theater and wrote screenplays for television. He directed his first feature, GOLNAR, in 1986 and co-wrote Jafar Panahi’s THE CIRCLE. His 2007 feature, BORDER CAFÉ, was Iran’s official submission to the 2006 Oscars®.