And for Cinema East this month, curator Jeff Purdue has selected Jafar Panahi’s 3 Faces. 3 Faces is the fourth film Panahi has made while under a 20-year filmmaking ban in Iran, a ban “imposed for allegedly making propaganda against his country’s regime” (Variety), and in that context, the film went on to compete at Cannes and take home the Best Screenplay prize. This past summer, July of 2022 (after making yet another brilliant film with No Bears), Panahi was sentenced to six years in prison, and while his sentence was recently declared void by the country’s Supreme Court, they have still refused to release him, and as of February 1, Panahi is on hunger strike “to protest his ongoing detention at Iran’s notoriously harsh Evin prison” (Deadline). It’s a sobering thought, the contrast of freedom here, sitting in the comfort of our own cinema, watching what we please, while Panahi risks his very life for his art. Panahi’s films often feature reflections on cinema itself as well as interrogations of the repressiveness of his country’s government, whether in the restrictions on art or on others, including women, and in 3 Faces, Panahi cast himself, as a version of himself, and Behnaz Jafari, an actress also playing a version of herself, and the two go on a journey to discover the truth about the death of a young woman who was apparently driven to suicide by her family’s prohibition against her becoming an actress. Critic Jessica Kiang in her 2018 Variety review of 3 Faces calls it a “quietly fierce act of cinematic defiance” while also noting that the film reveals “a filmmaker with more cause than most to feel victimized, turning a deeply respectful, artful and compassionate eye outward, to the struggles of others, and finding such empathy there that the film amounts to a heartfelt statement of solidarity.”

And so in solidarity with Panahi himself and in support of this art we all love so much, it is our pleasure and honor to screen Panahi’s film, and to say, see you at the movies, friends.

Melissa

Melissa