Jafar Panahi: Restrictions as Structure

This Is Not a Film was made while Jafar Panahi was confined to his home and banned from filmmaking by the Iranian state. In one sequence, he marks out a bedroom on his carpet with masking tape and begins describing a film he has been prevented from making. His description brings part of the scene into the room, then exposes everything that description cannot replace.

For the opening session of our Jafar Panahi month, Sammy Holden will use selected extracts from This Is Not a Film, co-directed by Panahi and Mojtaba Mirtahmasb, to examine blocking, off-screen space and the difference between planning a film and being able to make it.

Panahi’s restrictions were imposed by the state and carried serious personal consequences. That context will remain central to the session. The chosen limit used in our group activity is not an equivalent; it simply gives us a practical way to…