Word: panahi
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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WHAT COULD BE POLITICALLY incendiary about a sweet little Iranian movie that tells the story of a small girl looking for some lost money? Not a thing. Yet Jafar Panahi's The White Balloon has become the victim of an international skirmish over the U.S.'s alleged efforts to destabilize Iran. That country's Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance has announced that The White Balloon, submitted as Iran's entry in the foreign-language category of the Oscars, was being withdrawn. In response, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences said it would not allow a film...
...Panahi, formerly an assistant to Iran's master filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami (who did the script for The White Balloon), labors under a far more censorious burden than any Hollywood director. Yet his sly comedy is wonderfully open to life's coincidences and consequences; it shows an uncondescending interest in children even as it is alert to their gamin guile. His film deserves viewers, supporters--perhaps even a statuette...
...that is hard to convey," says Gray. "But Vargas Llosa's meticulously realistic descriptions of this high, unforgiving landscape and the haunted people who perch there for the span of their lives ultimately merge into a surreal portrait of a place both specific and universal."Movies: The White BalloonJafar Panahi's sweet little tale of a small Iranian girl looking for some lost money has become the victim of an international skirmish over the U.S.'s alleged efforts to destabilize Iran. The country's Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance has tried to withdraw the film from consideration...