It’s been months since Jafar Panahi, stuck in jail, has been awaiting a verdict by the appeals court. By depicting a day in his life, Panahi and Mojtaba Mirtahmasb try to portray the deprivations looming in contemporary Iranian cinema.

Despite house arrest in his home country of Iran, director Jafar Panahi successfully made and smuggled to the Cannes Film Festival this self-reflexive, confessional masterpiece. Ingeniously subverting all notions of filmmaking, he’s created a deeply moving exercise in poetic and political justice.