Jafar Panahi Couldn't Travel: The Film Showed Up Anyway

He produced and edited Hijamat, a competition title from director Nader Saeivar, and the festival wanted him there — Karel Och, the artistic director, said so plainly.

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Overview

There is a version of film culture that exists entirely on paper — festival programmes, guest lists, press junkets, the careful choreography of who stands where and says what into which microphone.

And then there is the version that happens despite all of it, the version that arrives anyway, unannounced and inconvenient, and refuses to be managed.

He produced and edited *Hijamat*, a competition title from director Nader Saeivar, and the festival wanted him there — Karel Och, the artistic director, said so plainly.

Then the travel ban came down and that was the end of that particular plan.

The work traveled where the man couldn't, which is either a testament to what cinema does or a reminder of what governments do, depending on how cynical you're feeling at this precise moment.

There is a version of film culture that exists entirely on paper — festival programmes, guest lists, press junkets, the careful choreography of who stands where and says what into which microphone. And then there is the version that happens despite all of it, the version that arrives anyway, unannounced and inconvenient, and refuses to be managed.

Jafar Panahi was on the guest list at Karlovy Vary. He produced and edited *Hijamat*, a competition title from director Nader Saeivar, and the festival wanted him there — Karel Och, the artistic director, said so plainly. Then the travel ban came down and that was the end of that particular plan. The film is still in competition. Panahi is not in the Czech Republic. The work traveled where the man couldn't, which is either a testament to what cinema does or a reminder of what governments do, depending on how cynical you're feeling at this precise moment.

I'm feeling fairly cynical.

Panahi has been making films while under various forms of state restriction for years now — *This Is Not a Film* was smuggled out of Iran on a USB drive hidden inside a birthday cake, which is either the most romantic thing that ever happened to cinema or the most damning indictment of the systems that make such measures necessary. Probably both. His presence at a film he shaped, even when he cannot be physically present, is its own kind of political act, and the festival acknowledging that openly — naming him, citing his involvement, expressing that they wanted him there — matters more than it might seem. Festivals are institutions. Institutions have sponsors and diplomatic relationships and reasons to say nothing. Karlovy Vary said something.

Meanwhile, elsewhere in the week's screen conversation: *Avatar: The Last Airbender* on Netflix has quietly recast a major character between seasons, in the way streaming platforms do things when they're hoping you won't notice until you're already three episodes in and too invested to care. Brad Bird continues to resist the gravitational pull of *Ratatouille 2*, which makes him one of the few people in Hollywood currently saying "no, we told that story" and meaning it. Patton Oswalt wants the sequel. Bird does not. The correct person is winning this argument.

The film that couldn't bring its maker to the room is the story worth sitting with tonight.

Editor's Note

The Iranian state didn't show up in Karlovy Vary, but its shadow did — and somehow that made the film more present, not less.

— Elena Vella

Dua Mifsud

Culture, Fashion & Gen Z Editor

Dua Mifsud dropped out of university in her second year, not because she couldn't do it but because she could see exactly where it was going. Her mother is in Malta, her father is in London, and she is usually somewhere between the two — on a plane, in a concert queue, or watching a film alone in the dark. She is the shortest person in any room and usually the most dangerous.

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Edited by Ilhan Irem Yuce · Chief Editor, News Beast