The Accordion

Iran, France, Brazil, Italy, Switzerland

2010

9 Min

Color

Farsi

Currently 3.6/5 Stars.
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CAST Khadije Bahrami, Kambiz Bahrami

ED Jafar Panahi

Venice (Venice Days), AFI FEST (Short Films), Melbourne (International Shorts)

Synopsis

Two young buskers in Tehran, a boy and a girl, have their accordion confiscated as the result of an incident. “The Accordion is the story of humankind’s materialistic need to survive in a pretentious religion. In it, a boy is prevented from playing for reasons of religious prohibition, which he accepts in order to survive. But the main character of the film is the girl or, perhaps, in my view, the symbol of the next generation. In her ideal world she realizes man’s need for survival and decides to avoid the violence and share her small income with someone else who is also in need.” –Jafar Panahi

One of the most celebrated Iranian and international artists compresses his storytelling and reflections in a short film that not only captures Tehran today, but also serves as a metaphor on violence, tolerance and hope. It was, in fact, Jafar Pahani’s vitality and courage here that sparked our passions most. However, the director would not have conceived this splendid “short story” were it not for backing from the wonderful utopia that is the omnibus film Then and Now, dedicated to overcoming barriers and differences and produced by Art for the World with support from the United Nations. We further await to see and applaud The Accordion in its final “home,” alongside works from other great directors, including Tata Amaral, Fanny Ardant, Faouzi Bensaidi, Sergei Bodrov, Isabelle Coixet, Mahanat-Saleh Haroun, Hüseyin Karabey, Masbedo, Murali Nair, Guka Omarova, Idrissa Ouédraogo, Abderrahmane Sissako and Robert Wilson. –Giorgio Gosetti, Venice Days

Director

Jafar Panahi

Jafar Panahi (Persian: جعفر پناهی , born July 11, 1960 in Mianeh, Iran) is an Iranian filmmaker and is one of the most influential filmmakers in the Iranian New Wave movement. He has gained recognition from film theorists and critics worldwide and received numerous awards including the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival and the Silver Bear at the Berlin Film Festival.

Jafar Panahi was ten years old when he wrote his first book, which subsequently won the first prize in a literary competition. At the same age, he became familiar with film making. He shot films on 8mm film, acting in one and assisting in the making of another. Later, he took up photography. During his military service, Panahi served in the Iran–Iraq War (1980-90) and made a documentary about the war during this period.

After studying film directing at the College of Cinema and Television in Tehran, Panahi made several films for Iranian television and was the assistant director of Abbas Kiarostami’s… read more

Jafar Panahi (Persian: جعفر پناهی , born July 11, 1960 in Mianeh, Iran) is an Iranian filmmaker and is one of the most influential filmmakers in the Iranian New Wave movement. He has gained recognition from film theorists and critics worldwide and received numerous awards including the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival and the Silver Bear at the Berlin Film Festival.

Jafar Panahi was ten years old when he wrote his first book, which subsequently won the first prize in a literary competition. At the same age, he became familiar with film making. He shot films on 8mm film, acting in one and assisting in the making of another. Later, he took up photography. During his military service, Panahi served in the Iran–Iraq War (1980-90) and made a documentary about the war during this period.

After studying film directing at the College of Cinema and Television in Tehran, Panahi made several films for Iranian television and was the assistant director of Abbas Kiarostami’s film Through the Olive Trees (1994). Since that time, he has directed several films and won numerous awards in international film festivals.

Panahi’s first feature film came in 1995, entitled White Balloon. This film won a Camera d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival. His second feature film, The Mirror, received the Golden Leopard Award at the Locarno Film Festival.

His most notable offering to date has been The Circle (2000), which criticized the treatment of women under Iran’s Islamist regime. Jafar Panahi won the Golden Lion, the top prize at the Venice Film Festival for The Circle, which was named FIPRESCI Film of the Year at the San Sebastián International Film Festival, and appeared on Top 10 lists of critics worldwide.. Panahi also directed Crimson Gold in 2003, which brought him the Un Certain Regard Jury Award at the Cannes Film Festival. During that time Panahi was detained in the JFK airport, New York, while taking a connection from Hong Kong to Montevideo, after refusing to be photographed and fingerprinted by the immigration police. After being chained and waiting for several hours, he was finally sent back to Hong Kong.

Panahi’s Offside (the story of girls who disguise themselves as boys to be able to watch a football match) was selected for competition in the 2006 Berlin Film Festival, where he was awarded with the Silver Bear (Jury Grand Prix).

On 30 July 2009, Mojtaba Saminejad, an Iranian blogger and human rights activist writing from inside Iran, reported that Panahi was arrested at the cemetery in Tehran where mourners had gathered near the grave of Neda Agha-Soltan. He was later released, but his passport was revoked and he was banned from leaving the country. In February 2010 his request to travel to the 60th Berlin Film Festival to participate in the panel discussion on “Iranian Cinema: Present and Future. Expectations inside and outside of Iran” was denied.

On 1 March 2010, Panahi was arrested again. He was taken from his home along with his wife Tahereh Saidi, daughter Solmaz Panahi and 15 of his friends by plainclothes officers and taken to the Evin Prison. Most were released 48 hours later, Mohammad Rasoulof and Mehdi Pourmoussa on 17 March 2010, but Panahi remains in ward 209 inside Evin Prison. Panahi’s arrest was confirmed by the government, but charges were not specified. Filmmakers Ken Loach, Abbas Kiarostami, Kiomars Pourahmad, Bahram Bayzai, Asghar Farhadi, Nasser Taghvai, Kamran Shirdel and Tahmineh Milani, actor Mehdi Hashemi, actresses Fatemeh Motamed-Aria and Golshifteh Farahani, Federation of European Film Directors, European Film Academy, Asia Pacific Screen Awards, Network for the Promotion of Asian Cinema, Berlin Film Festival, Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, International Film Festival Rotterdam, Febiofest and Toronto Film Critics Association have called for his release. France’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and minister of culture and communications Frédéric Mitterrand, German foreign minister Guido Westerwelle, Canadian government and Human Rights Watch have condemned the arrest. On 8 March 2010, a group of well-known Iranian producers, directors and actors visited Panahi’s family to show their support and call for his immediate release. After more than a week in captivity, Panahi was finally allowed to call his family. On 18 March 2010 he has been allowed to have visitors, including his family and lawyer.

Panahi’s style is often described as an Iranian form of neorealism.[citation needed] Jake Wilson describes his films as connected by a “tension between documentary immediacy and a set of strictly defined formal parameters” in addition to “overtly expressed anger at the restrictions that Iranian society imposes”. His film Offside is so ensconced in the reality that it was actually filmed in part during the event it dramatizes – the Iran-Bahrain qualifying match for the 2006 World Cup. —wikipedia

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