Closed Curtain

As soon as the Iranian government banned him from directing motion pictures, Jafar Panahi began to realize his work in secret, in the severely limited environment of house arrest. And so, after the documentary This Is Not a Film (2011), he made another work, this time symbolic in nature. Closed Curtain also pits the reality of external imprisonment against the need – and the responsibility – for internal freedom. The cryptic concept not only resists the totalitarianism of present-day Iran but also traditional narrative approaches. The protagonist of the story is a screenwriter (played by codirector Kamboziya Partovi) who arrives at a remote villa on the beach with a dog he is hiding from the authorities: according to Islamic custom, dogs are considered unclean. Two other refugees find a haven in the villa – but the dominant figure is Panahi himself when he turns up unexpectedly at the villa with a film crew and tries to get his characters under control. (Karlovy Vary International Film Festival)