Jafar Panahi: interview with a clandestine filmmaker

Prohibited from filming since 2010, Jafar Panahi continues to film in hiding. Sacred Palme d’Or in Cannes last May, his film A simple accident is released today in theaters. Meeting with a filmmaker, symbol of resistance to Iran of Mullahs.

By winning the Palme d’Or last May, Jafar Panahi changed status. He is no longer just a prevented filmmaker, cunning with prohibitions. A simple accident Tops the table and changes the eye on Iran – without slogan, by the simple strength of its staging. Thirty years after his gold camera for The white balloonPanahi imposes his resistance cinema that has become popular. With his quiet strength, like never started by the trials, he tells us the story of a clandestine manufacture.

First: how is a filming on a daily basis where everything can stop at any time with the risk of ending up in prison again?
Jafar Panahi: We are in a state of permanent stress. As soon as someone passes very close to us, we are decentralized, we wonder who it is, if it comes to spy on us to denounce us. This pressure is the same every morning and never stops.

Turning movies in hiding also challenges you to find actors who are ready to accept the risks that this implies …
The performers ofA simple accident are people that I have crossed by chance or that I had already managed, like Vahid Mobasseri, the interpreter of the main character, who was already present in None bear… And who turns out to be the owner of my apartment! (Laughs.) It is actually a different story each time. For example, one day, I went to see a play staged by a friend, an original show with a reading in parallel with the performance. And I did not look at all the actors who played but the one who read. In the end, I went to tell him that I would like to give him a role. She said to me, “ But you didn’t see me play! “And I replied:” That’s exactly why I choose you. »(Laughs.)

Do you have the feeling of having become a symbol?
Since my return, a lot of families of prisoners have come to see me at home and I am as deeply touched as they are honored. I do not know if I am a symbol, but I have a certainty: with A simple accidentI managed to go from “I” to “we”.

We wondered what was going to happen when you return to Iran. Do you have the feeling that this palm has put a target in your back?
No, conversely, so far, it protected me, thanks to the impact it has had throughout the population. It started on my return day at the airport, where a lot of people came to welcome me. There was an incredible atmosphere. So that the agents let us pass, after an ultra -fast control, to avoid any tension. Since then, nothing has happened to me. But in Iran, I know it for having so often lived it, everything can change at any time. The truth of the day is far from being that of the next day.

A simple accident is currently to be seen in cinemas in France.

Find the integral of our interview with Jafar Panahi in the magazine n ° 566 first, currently on newsstands (with Jean Dujardin on the cover).