This Is Not a Film

Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi cannot give interviews, cannot leave the country & has been banned from making films for 20 years. In this This Is Not a Film, he pushes against the ban by inviting his friend & colleague Mojtaba Mirtahmasb to come over & document him doing a walk-through of the movie he cannot make. Along the way we get a record of his life under house arrest in a spacious Teheran apartment. He talks with his lawyer about the appeal of his 6 year prison sentence, feeds his daughter's pet iguana & fends off a neighbor who wants him to babysit her dog. From his balcony he hears gunshots, sirens & helicopters. The situation is dire, yet the film often has a defiantly humorous tone. It ends with a remarkable long take that brings Mr. Panahi to the threshhold of his captivity.

This Is Not a Film will be presented April 6–12 by the SF Film Society in their Japantown cinema.

§ This Is Not a Film (In film nist)
An Effort by Jafar Panahi, Mojtaba Mirtahmasb
Iran 2011, 75 min.