Jafar Panahi wants to go home. “To be honest, my time is being totally wasted with all this travel,” the filmmaker tells me from a New York hotel room, amid a months-long international press tour. “I cannot wait for it to be over and to go back to Iran, sit down, and get to work.” As much a professional mischief-maker as he is a political dissident, simultaneously despised and feared by the Iranian authorities, Panahi cracks a wry smile. “I want to suggest a legal solution going ahead,” he says, tongue planted firmly in cheek. “All filmmakers should be banned from leaving their countries so they can actually get some work done.”
On the Thursday afternoon that we speak, the remark makes me laugh. The following Monday evening, when I hear the news that Panahi has once again been sentenced to prison by the government of his homeland, it makes me wince. But if anyone is better able to face physical and existential threats, it is a man who has defied authoritarian rule for 25 years, having persevered through a two-decade travel ban, two previous stints in jail, and a block on making films.
