No Bears

Dissident Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi has now spent over a decade covertly creating deftly imaginative films despite being banned from filmmaking by the government. Recently imprisoned, that remarkable run will surely be disrupted but his latest, No Bears is now being released and it stands alongside This is Not a Film and Taxi Tehran as resourceful and defiant statements of creative resistance. In two clever, parallel stories, he plays a version of himself, directing a film remotely across the Iranian border about a couple attempting to get fake passports to flee to France.

We are filmmakers. We are part of Iranian cinema. For us, to live is to create. We create works that are not commissioned. Therefore, those in power see us as criminals. Independent cinema reflects its own times. It draws inspiration from society. And cannot be indifferent to it. The history of Iranian cinema witnesses the constant and active presence of independent directors who have struggled to push back censorship and to ensure the survival of this art. While on this path, some were banned from making films, others were forced into exile or reduced to isolation. And yet, the hope of creating again is a reason for existence. No matter where, when, or under what circumstances, an independent filmmaker is either creating or thinking about creation. We are filmmakers, independent ones.

Director Jafar Panahi, a statement made for New York Film Festival after being sentenced to six years imprisonment