JAFAR PANAHI

An Iranian director and screenwriter, Jafar Panahi directed his first feature-length film, The White Balloon, in 1995. Co-written with Abbas Kiarostami, the film was selected for the Directors’ Fortnight at the Festival de Cannes, where it won the Caméra d’or. It was followed in 1997 by The Mirror, which won the Golden Leopard at the Locarno Film Festival, where, three years later, The Circle won the Golden Lion and the FIPRESCI Prize at the Venice International Film Festival. In 2003, Panahi returned to Cannes with Crimson Gold, which won the Un Certain Regard Jury Prize. With Offside, he received the Silver Bear for Best Director at the Berlin International Film Festival. In 2010, Panahi was sentenced to a 20-year ban from leaving Iran and directing or writing films, under threat of a six-year prison sentence. Despite these restrictions, he co-directed This Is Not a Film with Mojtaba Mirtahmasb, which was screened at Cannes in 2011. In 2012, he clandestinely co-directed (with Kambuzia Partovi) Closed Curtain, which won the Silver Bear for Best Screenplay at the Berlin International Film Festival in 2013. In 2015, he premiered Taxi Tehran in Berlin, where it received the Golden Bear and the FIPRESCI Prize. In 2017, Panahi began production on 3 Faces, which won the Best Screenplay Award at Cannes. In 2022, he received the Special Jury Prize at Venice for No Bears. In 2025, he returned to the Official Competition at Cannes with It Was Just An Accident, for which he won the Palme d’or.