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Time and again, Jafar Panahi has proved that films have immense potential as timeless documents depicting the present socio-political situation of a nation without pandering to propaganda. The films of Panahi stand out for their natural familiarity and conviction that every person’s effort to live their life according to their terms is the most interesting struggle in existence. The viewing experience of his films frequently occurs in our calmest, most reflective areas. His films boldly critique the establishment by making political and social commentary.

In the year, 2011, Panahi was imprisoned under house arrest for a false propaganda accusation 20-year ban on creating films in Iran. He was also given a six-year prison term. But the legendary filmmaker has exhibited bravery in the face of adversity. In the year, 2011, he made a film secretly, and the film was smuggled to be screened at the prestigious Cannes film festival. This proves...

Sentenced by the Iranian government in 2010 on spurious grounds to six years in prison, a punishment that came with a 20-year ban on making movies, Jafar Panahi immediately set about violating the latter. Title notwithstanding, 2011’s This is Not a Film was what I’d call an “actual movie,” spry and self-reflexive like his first two features, 1995’s The White Balloon and 1997’s The Mirror. The post-Film features that followed—Closed Curtain, Taxi, 3 Faces and No Bears—merited that first post-ban title more. Leaning upon his undeniably courageous status as a (since) multiple-times-jailed dissident filmmaker, those works foregrounded the director as a benign […]

The post Cannes 2025: It Was Just an Accident, The Secret Agent first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Sentenced by the Iranian government in 2010 on spurious grounds to six years in prison, a punishment that came with a 20-year ban on making movies, Jafar Panahi immediately set about violating the latter. Title notwithstanding, 2011’s This is Not a Film was what I’d call an “actual movie,” spry and self-reflexive like his first two features, 1995’s The White Balloon and 1997’s The Mirror. The post-Film features that followed—Closed Curtain, Taxi, 3 Faces and No Bears—merited that first post-ban title more. Leaning upon his undeniably courageous status as a (since) multiple-times-jailed dissident filmmaker, those works foregrounded the director as a benign […]

The post Cannes 2025: It Was Just an Accident, The Secret Agent first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Jafar Panahi might be more synonymous with Berlin say over Cannes, but he has left his mark with the likes of 1995 Camera d’Or winner The White Balloon and masterwork Crimson Gold back in 2003 in the Un Certain Regard section. The Iranian neorealist who redefines what it means to be an artist under house arrest, has previously shored up in comp with 3 Faces (read our ★★★ review) . Past the midway point of the competition, not much is know on It Was Just an Accident – we assume that is was filmed last year. With the backing of France and Luxembourg coin, this simply goes by a minor accident sets in motion a series of escalating consequences.…...

Jafar Panahi was not born a dissident filmmaker. He never strived to become one. He had the mantle of dissident artist thrust upon him by the regime in Tehran.

In 2009, after Panahi attended the funeral of a student killed in the so-called Green Revolution protests, the government banned him from leaving the country. In 2010, citing his plans to shoot a film with the protests as a backdrop, the government slapped him with a 20-year ban on travel and filmmaking along with a six-year suspended prison sentence for “propaganda against the system.”

Panahi was famous in international art house circles before the ban — The White Balloon (1995) won Cannes’ Camera d’Or for best first feature, The Circle (2000) earned Venice’s Golden Lion for best film — but it was after the ban that the mainstream press took notice.

When the 2011 Berlin Film Festival staged a symbolic protest, leaving a seat empty for Panahi,...

Buyers are finally wise to the fact that Cannes is driving the Oscar race and even the specialized box office. Everyone wants to find the next “Anora,” “The Substance,” “Emilia Perez,” or “Anatomy of a Fall.” And more buyers like Mubi, Metrograph, Sideshow, and other upstarts have emerged to take on the likes of Neon and A24, who come to Cannes armed with several titles already set to debut.

Below, we’ve identified 13 movies looking for homes that could be the next awards breakout, including new films from Lynne Ramsay and Richard Linklater and the debuts of Kristen Stewart and Harris Dickinson.

All titles presented alphabetically.

“The Chronology of Water” (Un Certain Regard)

Director: Kristen Stewart

Stars: Imogen Poots, Thora Birch, Jim Belushi, Tom Sturridge

Buzz: Even if it’s in a sidebar for a first-time director, Kristen Stewart’s debut should be a hot ticket with a lot of...

“The Witness,” premiering at the Venice Film Festival, has sold to Benelux (Edgy), France (Jour2fete) and No.mad Entertainment (Italy). The film’s German distributor is Missing Films as previously reported. The film, which is directed by Nader Saeivar, and co-written by Saeivar and Jafar Panahi, is debuting its trailer (below).

“I’ve been working with Jafar Panahi since 2017 and ‘3 Faces.’ He taught me it’s possible to make a good film with a small group of people, in secret. Perhaps this type of filmmaking was actually invented by Panahi himself?” wondered Saeivar. Repeatedly persecuted and arrested, Panahi was recently released from jail in 2023 after he went on hunger strike.

“I am proud he’s been by my side, like a teacher, in all three films I’ve made. I learnt not to be afraid, not to make excuses and just make movies.”

In “The Witness,” a retired dance teacher...

Can’t make it to Toronto International Film Festival next week? Have no fear, Kino Film Collection is here to make you feel less left out. Though the streamer won’t be offering the latest selections from this year’s festival, to celebrate the annual showcase, it has created a program of 87 films that have previously screened there and will be available throughout the month. Below you can find some of the selections with language provided by Kino.

“3 Faces”

Winner of the Best Screenplay Award and nominated for a Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, “3 Faces” is Iranian director Jafar Panahi’s fourth feature since he was officially banned from filmmaking. Starring Behnaz Jafari as herself, Panahi’s film builds in narrative, thematic, and visual intricacy to put forth a grand expression of community and solidarity under the eye of oppression.

“Alps”

Before “The Favourite”, Academy...

Naghdipari was detained during street protests marking the anniversary of Mahsa Amini’s death in police custody.

The International Coalition for Filmmakers and at Risk (Icfr) and leading Iranian director Jafar Panahi have demanded the release of Iranian set and costume designer Leila Naghdipari.

Naghdipari was one of hundreds of Iranians detained earlier this month amid street protests in the country marking the anniversary of Mahsa Amini’s death in police custody.

Her credits include Panahi’s Cannes competition film 3 Faces and Abbas Amini’s Valderrama.

The Ifcr and its founding institutions, the International Film Festival Rotterdam, International Documentary...

Iranian director and screenwriter Saeed Roustayi has been sentenced to six months in prison for screening his film Leila’s Brothers at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival without necessary authorization, according to local reports.

The filmmaker — alongside his producer Javad Noruzbegi — were on Tuesday found guilty of “contributing to propaganda of the opposition against the Islamic system” by Tehran’s Islamic Revolutionary Court, as per reports in the Iranian daily Etemad and Radio Free Europe.

The court ruled that the two will serve about nine days in jail, while the remainder of the sentence will be suspended over five years, during which time they have effectively been banned from making films. The requirements say that they “refrain from activities related to the committed crime or using tools effective in it,” “avoid contact and association with individuals active in the film industry” and “attend a filmmaking course at the Qom Sound and Vision Academy.

German producer Silvana Santamaria has come on board as a lead producer on “The Witness,” the new Tehran-set project reuniting Jafar Panahi and Nader Saeivar that Arthood entertainment is selling in Cannes.

Saeivar will direct “The Witness.” Saeivar wrote “3 Faces,” the Panahi-directed drama that premiered in 2018 in Cannes where it won the award for best screenplay.

Panahi, who is one of Iran’s most prominent auteurs, was recently released from Tehran’s Evin prison after being incarcerated for “propaganda against the system.” He is expected to work with Saeivar on “The Witness,” as he did for his previous films “No End” and “Namo,” according to Santamaria. Panahi will also serve as editor on this previously announced film that is expected to start shooting soon.

In “The Witness,” a widowed retired teacher sees the murder of her adopted daughter. When the police refuse to investigate the murder because of the...

Mubi has announced its lineup of streaming offerings for next month, including a Béla Tarr double bill, with new 4K restorations of Damnation and Sátántangó, Léa Mysius’ The Five Devils, Radu Jude’s short The Potemkinists, and Kira Kovalenko’s Unclenching the Fists.

They will also present a series on past Cannes Film Festival selections with films by Abderrahmane Sissako, Alice Rohrwacher, Djibril Diop Mambéty, Jeremy Saulnier, and more. Ana Vaz’s The Age of Stone and most recent work It is Night in America will arrive on the service, plus a Merchant Ivory series.

Check out the lineup below and get 30 days free here.

May 1 – Blind Spot, directed by Claudia von Alemann | What Sets Us Free? German Feminist Cinema

May 2 – Heat and Dust, directed by James Ivory | Gilded Passions: Films by Merchant Ivory

May 3 – Damnation, directed by Béla Tarr | Béla Tarr: A Double Bill

May 4 – The Bostonians, directed by...

The writing team of Iran’s Jafar Panahi and Nader Saeivar, who won best screenplay at Cannes for “3 Faces” (2018) directed by Panahi, have reunited for “The Witness.”

To be directed by Saeivar, the project has been selected for the 21st Hong Kong – Asia Film Financing Forum (Haf), the project market that operates concurrently with FilMart (March 13-16). Saeivar made his feature debut with “The Alien” (2020), which was a Berlinale selection and won prizes at the Beijing, Hong Kong, Duhok, Taormina and International Crime and Punishment film festivals.

Saeivar’s sophomore feature, “No End,” debuted at Busan in 2022 and won him best director at Goa and a brace of awards at Vesoul recently.

“The Witness” follows a widowed retired teacher who sees the murder of her friend. When the police refuse to investigate the murder because of the suspect’s status as an important government figure, the witness decides to publicize everything she knows.

Iranian “No Bears” filmmaker Jafar Panahi has announced a hunger strike to protest his continued incarceration in Iran’s Evin prison, even after the country’s courts voided his sentence last week.

In July of last year, Panahi went to the Evin prison to inquire about the arrests of fellow filmmakers Mohammad Rasoulof and Mostafa Al-Ahmad, who were detained for their social media protest over the government response to a building collapse that killed more than 40 people.

Panahi’s inquiry reactivated a six-year sentence the director was originally handed in 2010 along with a 20-year-long filmmaking and travel ban, and he’s remained in incarceration since his inquiries.

The reactivated sentencing originated from Panahi’s attendance of a 2009 funeral for a student killed in the Green movement, where Iranian citizens demanded the removal of then-president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

The award-winning director’s films have regularly challenged Iranian systems and traditions, and his most recent film “No Bears,...

No Bears. The foghorn didn’t blare, no seagull bolted hysterically from the rhododendrons, and the bridge quietly crawled backwards behind us, swallowed up by a bank of early morning mist. I began my first dispatch with a view of the arc the vaporettos must sneak under on your way to the Lido, and I’m wrapping the last one on my last ferry of the year, at the crack of dawn, the lagoon perfectly silent, Venice still asleep. Early as it is to draw some conclusions about this 79th edition, the Golden Lion handed out yesterday by the jury presided by Julianne Moore made history. Laura Poitras won it for her All the Beauty and the Bloodshed, only the second time the statuette was given to a documentary. After 2020’s Nomadland and 2021’s The Happening, it was also the third year in a row that the top prize was...

In a strong show of support and solidarity, the 79th Venice International Film Festival honored Jafar Panahi by organizing an unprecedented flash-mob red carpet for the screening of his new film “No Bears,” despite the conspicuous absence of Panahi himself. The ceremony was a sad reminder of the shameful detention of him and fellow filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof by the Islamic Republic in Iran while his work was being celebrated on a prestigious international stage.

This was not the first time Panahi was absent at a festival screening of one of his films. He has been barred from leaving the country since 2010 when he was arrested and jailed for nearly three months on bogus charges of acting against national security. He was also banned from making films for 20 years, but he kept working surreptitiously in defiance of the absurdly unjust verdict. He strongly suspected at the time that the Islamic regime...

Every film Jafar Panahi makes is an act of resistance. Currently in jail, the Iranian director has spent the past 12 years in and out of house arrest, banned from traveling or making films outside Iran and faced with numerous obstacles making films at home. That hasn’t stopped him.

In No Bears, he goes to a village close to the porous border with Azerbaijan to tell a story involving a couple who are trying to get out to Paris with stolen passports, a film crew following them, a second young couple trying to escape a forced marriage and a village full of gossips and muckrakers. These villagers miss nothing, including the fact that Panahi, the visitor from Tehran, spends all day on his computer and only leaves his rented room after dark.

Merchant Of Venice Video Series Part IV – How Alberto Barbera Returned As Venice Leader And Transformed Fest Into...

Features hail from Singapore and South Korea to India and Iran.

The 27th Busan International Film Festival has revealed the 10 titles selected for the New Currents Award, the festival’s main competition section for Asian films.

The line-up includes No End by Iranian director Nader Saeivar, marking his second feature after The Alien, co-written by Jafar Panahi, which debuted at the Berlinale in 2020 and picked up prizes at Hong Kong and Beijing film festivals. Saeivar also co-wrote Panahi’s 3 Faces, which played in Competition at Cannes in 2018, winning best screenplay.

Scroll down for full list

From Malaysia, A Place...

The international trailer has been debuted for Jafar Panahi’s “No Bears,” which has its world premiere on Sept. 9 in competition at Venice Film Festival, before moving to Toronto Film Festival and New York Film Festival. Celluloid Dreams, which is handling world sales, has revealed territory deals with several distributors. Last month, Panahi was sentenced to six years’ imprisonment by the Iranian judiciary.

The political thriller/drama portrays two parallel stories of love. In both, the lovers are troubled by hidden, inevitable obstacles, the force of superstition and the mechanics of power.

Celluloid Dreams has closed deals with the following distributors: Picturehouse Entertainment (U.K.), Arp Selection (France), Academy Two (Italy), La Aventura (Spain), Golden Scene (Hong Kong/Macau), Impact Films (India), Midas Filmes (Portugal), Panda Film (Austria), September Films (Benelux), and Pt Falcon (Indonesia).

The cast includes Panahi, Naser Hashemi, Vahid Mobaseri, Bakhtiyar Panjei, Mina Kavani and Reza Heydari.

Festival favourites ‘Fire Of Love’, ‘Hit The Road’ also out.

Warner Bros’ DC League Of Super-Pets receives the widest release ever in the UK and Ireland for a fully-animated title this weekend, opening in 725 locations.

It is the joint-eighth widest release of all-time in the territory, alongside Disney’s Star Wars: The Last Jedi from 2017.

Among animated films, DC League Of Super-Pets tops the 719 locations of Disney’s 2019 The Lion King remake. It is slightly behind the 743 opening sites of Disney’s Mary Poppins Returns from 2018 – a predominantly live-action film featuring animated sequences.

It is a second-widest opening ever for Warner Bros,...

A pair of renowned auteurs who often work in secrecy have finished shooting their next projects. First up, South Korean director Hong Sangsoo has actually shot not one, but two new films following up The Novelist’s Film, which premiered at Berlinale earlier this year.

As revealed during his retrospective at Film at Lincoln Center, featuring the director in person and which just concluded last night with a secret screening of The Novelist’s Film, Hong has not only completed his 28th film but has also shot his 29th feature, which still is in post-production. While no additional details were given, don’t be surprised if we see Hong turn up with his next feature on the festival circuit before the end of the year.

Meanwhile, Iranian director Jafar Panahi has completed production on his new film No Bears. Marking the director’s follow-up to 3 Faces, Screen Daily reports the film...

It is the Iranian director’s first film since road movie 3 Faces which won best screenplay in competition at Cannes in 2018.

Paris-based Celluloid Dreams will kick off sales on Iranian director Jafar Panahi’s new feature No Bears at the upcoming edition of Cannes.

The drama follows two parallel love stories in which the partners are thwarted by hidden, inevitable obstacles, the force of superstition, and the mechanics of power.

It Is currently in post-production and will be ready for a launch at a festival this year.

It marks Panahi’s first fiction film since the road movie 3 Faces,...

This review of “Hit the Road” was first published on April 22, 2022, after its New York City opening.

“The cockroach thinks its baby is beautiful,” says the middle-aged father to his 6-year-old.

“Are we cockroaches?” the child asks. After pausing, the father replies, “We are now.”

This exchange, playful on the surface, but heavy with quiet grief, occurs late in “Hit The Road,” the stunning debut feature written and directed by Panahi about a troubled road trip, one involving a young man fleeing Iran for an uncertain future. He’s referred to frequently as a “traveler,” but there’s more to it than that.

The young man is Farid (Amin Simiar). He’s driving to a meeting spot, where masked guides on motorcycles are meant to smuggle him into Turkey. Along for the ride are his mother (Pantea Panahiha), father (Hassan Majooni) and young brother (Rayan Sarlak).

There’s been a summons,...

Hit the Road, the debut feature from writer/director Panah Panahi, is a 93-minute long goodbye of aptly sweet sorrow. Panah, 38, is the son of Jafar Panahi, one of the undisputed titans of Iranian art-house cinema. Having served as an assistant on his father’s films and edited his most recent feature (3 Faces), Panah emerges with Hit the Road as a filmmaker with a slyly unclassifiable take on the family road movie. Panah has called Hit the Road in many ways “the opposite of Jafar’s cinema,” but the film shares at least one key quality with his father’s work: It’s […]

The post “For Us Iranians, the Car Has Become a Second Home”: Panah Panahi on His Debut Feature, Hit the Road first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Hit the Road, the debut feature from writer/director Panah Panahi, is a 93-minute long goodbye of aptly sweet sorrow. Panah, 38, is the son of Jafar Panahi, one of the undisputed titans of Iranian art-house cinema. Having served as an assistant on his father’s films and edited his most recent feature (3 Faces), Panah emerges with Hit the Road as a filmmaker with a slyly unclassifiable take on the family road movie. Panah has called Hit the Road in many ways “the opposite of Jafar’s cinema,” but the film shares at least one key quality with his father’s work: It’s […]

The post “For Us Iranians, the Car Has Become a Second Home”: Panah Panahi on His Debut Feature, Hit the Road first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Early on in a family’s drive across northwest Iran, the father, Khosro (Hassan Madjooni), looks out the window at what used to be the largest lake in the Middle East, Lake Urmia. “Years ago, we would swim in it. Now, you can only have a dust bath.” Except for the unflaggingly effervescent younger son (Rayan Sarlak), the family all carry a similar blank experience that at first seems to come from the fatigue of a family road trip gone on too long. But then we deduce, detail by detail, that their worn expressions instead signal resignation, of worries that have no resolution. Hit The Road is an account of family separation from the older son, 20-year old Farid (Amin Simiar), who has to flee across the Turkish border for an offense for which he was arrested and released on a bail.We’re never told what Farid’s offense was,...

Panah Panahi is the son of the acclaimed Iranian dissident filmmaker Jafar Panahi, the winner of many prizes at top film festivals and the auteur who was sentenced to 6 years in prison and 20-year filmmaking ban for his socially critical work. Panah inherited his father’s filmmaking talent, got his filmmaking education and learned the tricks of the trade by assisting his father and even co-editing his film “3 Faces” (2018). “Hit the Road” is Panahi Junior’s feature directing debut that was selected for Directors Fortnight at Cannes. We had the chance to see it at Sarajevo’s Open Air section.

“Hit the Road“ is screening at Vesoul International Film Festival of Asian Cinema

Hit the Road opens to the sounds of Chopin’s piano music over the black screen before the action starts in the car. A hyperactive, obviously bored boy (Rayan Sarlak), pretend-plays the keyboard drawn on the...

This review of “The Year of the Everlasting Storm” was first published after the film’s July premiere at the Cannes Film Festival.

In a way, Mark Cousins’ “The Story of Film: A New Generation” was the ideal film to be the first screening at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival, because the documentary surveyed the most groundbreaking cinema of the 21st century and looked ahead to celebrate the return of moviegoers to theaters as the pandemic receded. But “The Year of the Everlasting Storm,” which premiered days later at Cannes, may be a perfect bookend to come as the festival nears its conclusion.

Whereas “The Story of Film” pointed the way toward the future as we come out of tough times, “Everlasting Storm” uses seven great filmmakers to peer deeply into where we’ve been during the pandemic, and where we may still be today; it’s set in the immediate past,...

Ten activists have signed a letter addressed to the United Nations demanding that the organization take measures to help Iran’s ongoing Covid-19 crisis, including requiring Iran to import the vaccine. Among the signatories are filmmakers Jafar Panahi and Mohammad Rasoulof (“There Is No Evil”), as well as documentarian Mohammad Nourizad.

The letter asserts that Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s ban on the vaccine, as well as governmental promotion of large religious gatherings where safety protocols are not employed, are causing continued infections and deaths. Khamenei banned the import of vaccines from the U.S. and the UK back in January on the basis of conspiracy theories, and activists are blaming the leader for what is a surging fifth wave of the pandemic in Iran. August 29 saw more than 31,000 new cases. The world has overall seen 4.51 million deaths and 217 million cases total.

Read the letter in full below:

To,

Her Excellency Michelle Bachelet,...

Panah Panahi is the son of the acclaimed Iranian dissident filmmaker Jafar Panahi, the winner of many prizes at top film festivals and the auteur who was sentenced to 6 years in prison and 20-year filmmaking ban for his socially critical work. Panah inherited his father’s filmmaking talent, got his filmmaking education and learned the tricks of the trade by assisting his father and even co-editing his film “3 Faces” (2018). “Hit the Road” is Panahi Junior’s feature directing debut that was selected for Directors Fortnight at Cannes. We had the chance to see it at Sarajevo’s Open Air section.

Hit the Road opens to the sounds of Chopin’s piano music over the black screen before the action starts in the car. A hyperactive, obviously bored boy (Rayan Sarlak), pretend-plays the keyboard drawn on the cast on his father’s (Hassan Madjooni) leg. The mother (Pantea Panahiha of...

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. Panah is the acclaimed filmmaker’s son, and besides going to film school, he has also worked on his father’s films, most recently co-editing his latest feature, “3 Faces.” The most cynical among us may not be surprised to learn that the opening sequence of his feature debut “Hit the Road,” playing in Directors’ Fortnight, alone contains more thrilling cinema than most other films at this year’s Festival de Cannes put together.

Continue reading ‘Hit The Road’: Panah Panahi’s Directorial Debut Is Thrilling Cinema & A Breath Of Fresh Air [Cannes Review] at The Playlist.

Pahah 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 chaotic Iranian family on a road trip across a rugged landscape, is world-premiering on Saturday.

Of course his father, whose film “Three Faces” won the best screenplay award at Cannes in 2018, is not just banned from leaving his home country. He’s also banned from filmmaking, after being tried and found guilty of “propaganda against the state,” though he surreptitiously makes films anyway. And Pahah has served as an...

A sweeping and melancholic first trailer has arrived for Neon’s secret omnibus film project, “The Year of the Everlasting Storm.” Featuring seven stories from seven auteurs from around the world, the film chronicles an unprecedented moment in time, and is a true love letter to the power of cinema and its storytellers. The seven-segment film is set to debut at the Cannes Film Festival this year (re-opening its doors for an in-person event after last year’s cancelled one), alongside two other Neon titles, “Memoria,” directed by Apichatpong Weerasethakul (who has a segment in “Everlasting Storm”) and “Titane,” directed by Julia Ducournau.

“The Year of the Everlasting Storm” has been slotted as Special Screening at the Cannes Film Festival this year. (The full lineup for the French festival was just announced on Thursday.) The film features contributions from seven major award-winning directors: Weerasethakul, David Lowery, Laura Poitras, Jafar Panahi,...

With a seemingly endless amount of streaming options—not only the titles at our disposal, but services themselves–each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit platforms. Check out this week’s selections below and an archive of past round-ups here.

Before we get to our weekly streaming picks, check out our annual feature: Where to Stream the Best Films of 2019.

3 Faces (Jafar Panahi)

3 Faces is the fourth film Jafar Panahi has made in defiance of a 20-year filmmaking ban the Iranian government issued against him in 2010. The first three were all small-scale affairs, shot solo or with tiny crews, in which the camera never left the confines of a given space – Panahi’s apartment building in This Is Not a Film (2011), a holiday house in Closed Curtain (2013), and a taxi in Taxi (2015). His newest, which sees him working with a larger team, is almost...

As 2019 winds down, like most cinephiles, we’re looking to get our hands on the titles that may have slipped under the radar or simply gone unseen. With the proliferation of streaming options, it’s thankfully easier than ever to play catch-up for those films you missed in a theater (or never came to your town), and to assist with the process, we’re bringing you a rundown of the best titles of the year available to watch.

Curated from the Best Films of 2019 So Far list we published for the first half of the year, it also includes films we’ve enjoyed the past few months and some we’ve recently caught up with. This is far from a be-all, end-all year-end feature (that will come at the end of the year), but rather something that will hopefully be a helpful tool for readers to have a chance to seek out notable,...

With a seemingly endless amount of streaming options — not only the titles at our disposal, but services themselves — we’re highlighting the noteworthy titles that have recently hit platforms. Check out this week’s selections below and an archive of past round-ups here.

20th Century Women (Mike Mills)

That emotional profundity most directors try to build to across an entire film? Mike Mills achieves it in every scene of 20th Century Women. There’s such a debilitating warmness to both the vibrant aesthetic and construction of its dynamic characters as Mills quickly soothes one into his story that you’re all the more caught off-guard as the flurry of emotional wallops are presented. Without ever hitting a tonal misstep, Mills’ latest feature takes place in a short period of time within relatively few locations, yet seems to pick up every wavelength of the human experience. There are also few funnier...

U.S. President Donald Trump’s escalating pressure on Iran is taking its toll on the country’s film industry, with production slowing down owing to the crippled economy and international sales of Iranian movies — especially to U.S. distributors — being hampered by sanctions.

“The economic situation is a disaster for independent cinema” in Iran, said Paris-based sales agent and producer Katayoon Shahabi, who is Iranian and was a member of the main Cannes jury three years ago. “Inflation is slashing budgets and funding sources.”

The sanctions mean that “it’s basically impossible to sell to any country, not just to the U.S.,” she said, because for companies based in Iran, “you can’t receive any money.”

Shahabi’s Cannes slate this year includes Tehran-set drama “I’m Scared,” directed by veteran Iranian auteur Behnam Behzadi, who was in Un Certain Regard in 2016 with “Inversion.”

“I’m Scared” — which...

In today’s film news roundup, Sterling K. Brown is cast as a basketball coach, Kino Lorber hires a programming veteran and Imagine promotes Karen Lunder.

Casting

Sterling K. Brown will play the lead role of Coach Willie Davis in inspirational sports drama “Rise” for Sony’s faith-based Affirm Films, Crystal City Entertainment and Gulfstream Pictures.

Kevin Rodney Sullivan will start filming in May in Louisiana with a wide theatrical release on April 10, 2020. The script was written by Randy Brown and Gregory Allen Howard.

Davis, a junior high school janitor, seized the opportunity to head coach the school’s basketball team as the school was weighing the decision to cancel the program due to funding concerns. Davis stressed “The Lord, books and basketball” to the team and became a role model for many of the kids in the school and surrounding community.

Producers are Ari Pinchot, Stuart Avi Savitsky, Mike Karz and Bill Bindley.

After a robust three-year run as the director of programming at New York City’s Quad Cinema, C. Mason Wells surprised the indie film world by announcing his departure earlier this week. Now we know why he’s leaving: Wells is joining Kino Lorber as director of theatrical sales, starting Monday April 8. He’ll be reporting directly to Wendy Lidell, Svp of theatrical, non-theatrical distribution and acquisitions.

When the Quad Cinema relaunched in 2016, it distinguished itself almost immediately with its extraordinary repertory lineups, including retrospectives of Alain Delon, Bob Fosse, and films that were rated X. Almost instantly, the Quad was as essential a part of the New York City film landscape as the IFC Center, Anthology Film Archives, and Bam Cinematek (for all three of which Wells had previously programmed lineups), as well as Film Forum and the Metrograph.

“I am delighted that Chris Wells will be joining our team,...

Winner of best Screenplay at Cannes in 2018, Jafar Panahi’s latest film 3 Faces is a brilliant study in female repression, patriotism and artistic freedom in post-Islamic revolution Iran. Panahi has had a chequered past with Iranian authorities over the last decade. Arrested twice during the anti-establishment protests of 2009, the director was condemned to a twenty year ban from making films or travelling outside the country. This however hasn’t stopped him from repeatedly going against this judgement and remaining defiant despite risking jail with the release of each production.

Popular TV actress Behnaz Jafar (played by Jafari herself) is distraught when she comes across a young girl’s video plea for help after being prevented by her family from taking up her drama studies in Tehran. Behnaz soon abandons the shoot she is on and jumps in a car with director friend Jafar Panahi (playing himself) to check...

The upcoming Beijing International Film Festival will give space to high-profile Hollywood franchise movies with screenings of all films in both the “Mad Max” and “Bourne Identity” series. Classic Hollywood fare will also feature prominently in a lineup that, as usual, features an eclectic grab-bag of titles.

The local government-backed festival opens April 13 and runs through April 20.

The list of films nominated in the festival’s competition section, and jury members has not yet been released. Winners of the Tiantan (Temple of Heaven) Award will be announced at the closing ceremony.

Since this year is the 70th anniversary of the People’s Republic of China, the theme of both the opening and closing ceremonies will be “home and country,” the festival said on its website, so as to make the event “a birthday blessing for the motherland.”

This benediction is so far scheduled to include “Mad Max” (1979), “Mad Max 2” (1981), “Mad Max:...

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSThe awards season marches on—this morning's BAFTA's nominations highlight more of the usual suspects, meanwhile the Golden Globes embraced mediocrity full-stop this weekend with their crowning of Bohemian Rhapsody as best "Dramatic Motion Picture." You can find the rest of the Hollywood Foreign Press' frequently specious choices here.Recommended VIEWINGNow the good stuff: the trailer for Christian Petzold's latest bold interrogation of history and present, Transit. We also interviewed Petzold about the film and its unique transposition of World War II to modern day Marseille earlier this year.Jafar Panahi is back with a new mosaic of reality and fiction, 3 Faces, a portrait of three actresses personal worlds. Last October, Naomi Keenan O'Shea wrote about how "serves as an exemplary piece from which to reflect upon the continued political pertinence...

Helping create the new Iranian Film Festival New York, which has its inaugural edition January 10 – 15 at the IFC Center, was the realization of a long-held dream. My initial encounter with Iranian cinema came at the first festival of post-Revolutionary Iranian films held in New York, at the Walter Reade Theater in the fall of 1992. Discovering the work of directors such as Abbas Kiarostami, Dariush Mehrjui, Bahram Beyzai, and many others was literally a life-changing experience for me; I began writing about Iranian cinema at every opportunity and made a number of trips to Iran to study the subject up close.

In 2017, my friend Ahmad Kiarostami invited me to go to Tehran and speak at a memorial for his father, Abbas, who died the previous year. The event was held in conjunction with Iran’s annual Fajr International Film Festival. While there, I met Armin Miladi, who distributes Iranian films in the U.

Following This Is Not a Film (2011), Closed Curtain (2013), and Taxi (2015), Jafar Panahi’s fourth film made under his ban premiered at Cannes Film Festival this past spring. 3 Faces follows Behnaz Jafari and Panahi who investigate a troubling message from an aspiring actress. One of the best 2019 films we’ve already seen, the U.S. trailer has now arrived via Kino Lorber ahead of a March release.

Giovanni Marchini Camia said in his Cannes review, “The director’s characteristic humanism and rejection of easy judgments suffuses the film with sincere empathy – refreshingly, he acknowledges his own role in the entrenched patriarchal culture he’s critiquing, both as a man and film director. As such, when 3 Faces closes on a bittersweet note, the hopeful gesture of its closing image feels neither cheap nor unearned.”

See the new trailer and poster below.

Iranian director Jafar Panahi’s fourth completed feature since he...

"We hoped you could solve our problems." Kino Lorber has released the official Us trailer for 3 Faces, also known as Se Rokh, which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival last year. This is Panahi's latest since his acclaimed film Taxi Tehran, which received quite a bit of buzz during its release in 2015. The title 3 Faces is a reference to the film following and introducing us to three actresses at different stages of their career. One from before the 1979 Islamic Revolution, one popular star of today known throughout the country, and a young girl from a small village longing to attend a drama conservatory. Jafar Panahi, playing himself (as usual), travels with the highly recognizable Behnaz Jafari to the small village to find the young woman, encountering locals and all kinds of troubles along the way. It's a charming film with a lot of depth within it, if you keep...

The last festival on the fall calendar, AFI Fest, always offers a few late-breaking possible Oscar contenders — including opener “On the Basis of Sex” and closer “Mary, Queen of Scots” — as well as a strong World Cinema line-up packed with foreign-language Oscar submissions.

This year is no exception: Seven possible Best Foreign Language Film Oscar contenders are in the lineup of 28 titles from 27 countries, including Cannes prize-winners “Capernaum”, “Shoplifters” (Japan’s Hirokazu Kore-eda, Magnolia), and “Dogman” (Italy’s Matteo Garrone, Magnolia), along with Cannes entry “The Wild Pear Tree”, Karlovy Vary Festival winner “I Do Not Care If We Go Down In History as Barbarians” (Romania’s Radu Jude), and two Tiff titles from Spc, “Never Look Away” (Germany’s Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck) and “Sunset” (Hungary’s “Son of Saul” Oscar-winner László Nemes).

Also in the lineup are several strong festival titles not submitted by their countries for the Oscars,...

The last festival on the fall calendar, AFI Fest, always offers a few late-breaking possible Oscar contenders — including opener “On the Basis of Sex” and closer “Mary, Queen of Scots” — as well as a strong World Cinema line-up packed with foreign-language Oscar submissions.

This year is no exception: Seven possible Best Foreign Language Film Oscar contenders are in the lineup of 28 titles from 27 countries, including Cannes prize-winners “Capernaum”, “Shoplifters” (Japan’s Hirokazu Kore-eda, Magnolia), and “Dogman” (Italy’s Matteo Garrone, Magnolia), along with Cannes entry “The Wild Pear Tree”, Karlovy Vary Festival winner “I Do Not Care If We Go Down In History as Barbarians” (Romania’s Radu Jude), and two Tiff titles from Spc, “Never Look Away” (Germany’s Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck) and “Sunset” (Hungary’s “Son of Saul” Oscar-winner László Nemes).

Also in the lineup are several strong festival titles not submitted by their countries for the Oscars,...

The 27th Annual Whitaker St. Louis International Film Festival (Sliff) — held Nov. 1-11 — ​provides St. Louis filmgoers with the opportunity to view the finest in world cinema: international films, documentaries, American indies, and shorts that can only be seen on the big screen at the festival. ​Sliff will screen 413 films: 88 narrative features, 77 documentary features, and 248 shorts. The fest also will feature 14 special-event programs, including our closing-night awards presentation. This year’s festival has 63 countries represented.

Sliff will present our usual array of fest buzz films and Oscar contenders, including “3 Faces,” “Ash Is Purest White,” “Ben Is Back,” “Boy Erased,” “Capernaum,” “The Captain,” “The Chaperone,” “Cold War,” “Destroyer,” “Diane,” “Dogman,” “Everybody Knows,” “The Front Runner,” “Green Book,” “If Beale Street Could Talk,” “The Image Book,” “Little Woods,” “Long Day’s Journey Into Night,” “Mapplethorpe,” “Non-Fiction,” “Shoplifters,” “Support the Girls,” “Transit,” “Vox Lux,” “Widows,” “Wildlife,” and “Zama.”

The festival will honor...

Although he is banned from travel outside his home country, and banned from filmmaking period, Iranian director Jafar Panahi continues to persevere, crafting movies that make their way to international festivals and theatrical release. At the New York Film Festival premiere of his latest work, 3 Faces, Panahi said via statement last night that he is “hopeful about the future of Iranian cinema” and offered a word of encouragement to others working under difficult circumstances.

In 2010, Panahi was arrested by the Iranian authorities and barred from making movies. He has continued to work, but still faces a prison sentence which has not been enforced. 3 Faces had its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival in May, where it won the Best Screenplay prize. Kino Lorber acquired the movie which it will release in March next year.

In NY on Monday night, Panahi’s friend, Iranian-American film scholar Dr. Jamsheed Akrami,...

Festival poster by Ed Lachman and Jr.Below you will find an index of our coverage of films—and posters!—at the 2018 New York Film Festival:Movie Poster of the Week: The Posters of the 56th New York Film FestivalOf all the photographic designs the official festival poster, created by Faces, Places co-director Jr and ace cinematographer—and Nyff regular—Ed Lachman, is the most interesting—and one of the best Nyff posters in recent years—with its Manhattan alleyway filled with oversized monochrome prints of famous filmmakers’ eyes (held aloft by Nyff staff). —Annual round-up of main slate posters by Adrian CurryThe Favourite (Yorgos Lanthimos)The Favourite, whose ‘family’ unit to be (self-)destroyed is of an aristocratic or rather royal kind, comprising the inner circle of the queen, is Lanthimos’ first attempt in directing only; the script was written by Deborah Davis and Tony McNamara. Nevertheless, the Greek philosopher’s-a.