This Is Not a Film
Directed by Jafar Panahi, Mojtaba Mirtahmasb
 | Read the San Francisco Chronicle review "...an act of political defiance, a moving personal document and a meditation on what film is and can be." |
Banned from making films for twenty years and under house arrest, Iranian director Jafar Panahi circumvents the edict through a technicality. He will read his latest screenplay aloud on-camera and invites his friend, documentarian Mojtaba Mirtahmasb, to record him. They start out with a relatively straightforward day-in-the-life presentation as Panahi discusses the creative process, fields phone calls, feeds a pet iguana and watches clips from his prior films for inspiration. But, unable to resist his calling, he begins performing as though he were directing, mapping off his rug to set the scene, acting out some of the roles and interviewing a visitor who works in his building. The line between what is and is not a film is broached with reverberating import. Filmed on HD and camera phone, this is do-it-yourself, imaginative, revolutionary filmmaking at its zenith.
TRAILER
"If this is not a film, it is, among other things, a statement of creative resistance in the face of tyranny and a document of intellectual freedom under political duress."
—A.O. Scott, New York Times
"What [Panahi has] achieved here is a total, true auteurism, a reclamation for political means of a mode of thinking that has long been debased for commercial measures." —Slant
"That one of the most consistently amusing and enlivening movies to
emerge from this year’s crop of festival films should have been made
by a filmmaker under house arrest, his hands pretty much tied, his
budget and equipment nil, just goes to prove that you can’t keep a
good man down." —Philip Lopate, Film Comment
"There is a charm and grace to this "not" film that mirrors all of Panahi's previous filmic masterpieces." —Eye for Film
In film nist. Iran 2011, 75 min. Written by Jafar Panahi, Mojtaba Mirtahmasb. Photographed by Jafar Panahi, Mojtaba Mirtahmasb. With Jafar Panahi, Mojtaba Mirtahmasb. Palisades Tartan. In Farsi with subtitles.
Tickets $9 for SFFS members, $11 general, $10 senior/student/disabled. Box office opens February 27 online at sffs.org and in person at SF Film Society Cinema.
April 6–12
Showtimes 1:00, 3:00, 5:00, 7:00, 9:00
SF Film Society Cinema
1746 Post Street (Webster/Buchanan)
Showtimes 1:00, 3:00, 5:00, 7:00, 9:00
SF Film Society Cinema
1746 Post Street (Webster/Buchanan)