Programmer's Note

On December 20, 2010, Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi was convicted of “assembly and colluding with the intention to com­mit crimes against the country’s national security and propaganda against the Islamic Republic.” His sentence: six years in prison and a twenty-year ban on filmmaking or giving any form of interview. He is currently under house arrest in Tehran, where he made This is not a Film.

The concept is simple: a day in the life of a filmmaker. But when the filmmaker is barred from making films, all he can do is plan. We see Panahi preparing a work that he knows he cannot make. It is a brilliant stroke.

He starts his day at the kitchen table with his collaborator, Mojtaba Mirtahmasb. He does not detail his support of protests over the 2009 re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that led to his present situa­tion. He speaks to his lawyer on the phone, hoping for some sign that the courts might lift his moratorium. He converses with Mirtahmasb about the creative process. And then he lays out his plans.

In a strangely mesmerizing sequence, this muzzled artist turns his living room into a film set, laying masking tape down on the carpet to delineate the space of his imagination. He narrates the opening shots for a hypothetical film that mirrors his own situation.

This is not a Film is a philosophical reflec­tion on the nature of making art; it is also an urgent and personal defence of the artist. When Panahi’s day ends on the threshold of the outside world, we see just what’s at stake.

We join the international film festival community in screening This is not a Film as widely as possible. All public screenings at the Festival will be presented free of charge Cameron Bailey