Jafar Panahi Latest Celebrity News & Gossip

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent The Venice Film Festival is launching two initiatives to support directors, filmmakers and artists who have been arrested or imprisoned around the world during the past year. In tandem with the International Coalition Filmmakers at Risk (ICFR), a panel will be held on Sept. 3 at the Palazzo del Casinò press conference room titled: “Filmmakers Under Attack:Taking Stock, Taking Action.” Panelists will include fest chiefs Alberto Barbera (Venice);  Vanja Kalurdjercic (Rotterdam); Orwa Nyrabia (Amsterdam Documentary Film Festival); Turkish producer Nadir Öperli; European Film Academy president Mike Downey and an unspecified Iranian director. 

Jafar Panahi doesn’t make documentaries. However, if you’re unfamiliar with his work and you see the trailer for his latest film, “No Bears,” you might be a little confused by that statement.

The lineup announced today for the 79th Venice Film Festival is a varied and rich offering from the world’s oldest event of its kind. There are auteur filmmakers galore who have also shown commercial mettle, previous Lido winners and some tantalizing out-of-competition entries including a short film featuring Chris Rock. While there may not be a Dune– or Joker-sized Hollywood tentpole in the bunch, this is an intriguing mix which is sure to bring plenty of star power — notably with Olivia Wilde’s out of competition title Don’t Worry Darling ferrying Florence Pugh, Harry Styles, Gemma Chan and Chris Pine to the island.

Tahereh Saeedi, the wife of imprisoned Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi, has described her husband’s recent imprisonment as being tantamount to “a kidnapping”.

Jessica Kiang With a touch on the pedal so light you don’t even feel the woosh, Panah Panahi, son of Iranian auteur Jafar Panahi, goes instantaneously from zero to 60 with his debut feature, “Hit the Road.” Doubly surprising, he does it repeatedly within the film too, from scene to scene — and within scenes, from moment to moment — accelerating and decelerating so abruptly, switching moods like gears, like radio stations, that by the end we should be rattling around inside, carsick, dying to

A family goes on a road trip with a difference in Hit The Road, a promising first feature from Panah Panahi, which showed in the Cannes Film Festival’s Directors’ Fortnight section. The son of Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi delivers a lean but affecting drama with a winning humorous streak.

It would be disingenuous not to begin this review by mentioning that, yes, Panah Panahi is indeed related to the titan of Iranian cinema, Jafar Panahi.

Nick Vivarelli International CorrespondentPahah Panahi — who is the son of Iranian master Jafar Panahi — has not had much trouble coming to the Cannes Film Festival from Iran, unlike his father, who is banned from travel.“Traveling was not problematic; I travelled to Paris to quarantine for seven days before going on to Cannes,” he said.To speed things up, Pahah’s visa was organized with the help of an invitation from the Director’s Fortnight, where his first feature, “Hit the Road,” about a

Like father like son, and just like that, there’s competition in the Panahi family for the best filmmaker.

Another Cannes Film Festival line-up announcement, another new round of trailers. Now, we’ve got the first look at Neon’s “The Year of the Everlasting Storm,” an anthology feature featuring seven stories told by an internationally acclaimed roster: filmmakers Jafar Panâhi, Anthony Chen, Malik Vitthal, Laura Poitras, Dominga Sotomayor, David Lowery, and Apichatpong Weerasethakul.

Iranian auteur Mohammad Rasoulof, whose sixth feature “There is no Evil” won the Berlin Film Festival’s Golden Bear on Saturday, is one of his country’s most prominent directors even though none of his films have screened in Iran where they are banned. In 2011, the year he won two prizes at Cannes with his censorship-themed “Goodbye,” Rasoulof was sentenced with fellow director Jafar Panahi to six years in prison and a 20-year ban on filmmaking for alleged anti-regime propaganda.