(Venice) The Venice Film Festival sent a political signal against censorship and Iranian power by awarding a special jury prize to Jafar Panahi on Saturday, showing that it was not abandoning the director, imprisoned since July, to his fate.
Posted at 2:38 p.m.
In his absence, the filmmaker was given a long standing ovation by the public in Venice, after the announcement of his award.
A major figure in Iranian cinema prevented by his imprisonment from coming to defend his film Bears don’t existPanahi, 62, delivers a mise en abyme, that of a creator locked up in his own country, the better to denounce oppression.
Already winner of the Golden Lion in Venice in 2000 for The circleand the Screenplay Prize at Cannes in 2018 with Three Facesthree years after the Golden Bear in Berlin for Taxi Tehranthe one who started as an assistant to Abbas Kiarostami is a regular in the selections.
Mina Kavani, one of the actresses in her film, read a message on the stage of the cinema palace: “We all are here thanks to the power of cinema, and for Jafar Panahi”.
Imprisoned in July after a conviction for “propaganda against the regime”, Panahi sent a letter to the festival last week, co-signed with his colleague Mohammad Rasoulof, also detained, in which they accuse Tehran of considering independent filmmakers “like criminals”. .
“The history of Iranian cinema bears witness to the constant and active presence of independent directors who fought against censorship and to guarantee the survival of this art. Among these, some are banned from making films, others have been forced into exile or reduced to solitary confinement,” they denounced in their missive.