This Is Not a Film This Is Not a Film

It's been months since Jafar Panahi, stuck in jail, has been awaiting a verdict by the appeals court. By depicting a day in his life, Panahi and Mojtaba Mirtahmasb try to portray the deprivations looming in contemporary Iranian cinema.

Jafar Panahi

Jafar Panahi Film Productions

foreign romance science fiction comedy

75 mins   More details at IMDb / TMDb

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  • Quinn Vincent Hough

    Review by Quinn Vincent Hough ★★★★½

    Last year I asked someone in Hollywood about a film they had just seen. "The picture quality was horrible, the sound was awful. Meh meh meh, blah blah blah." Perhaps I am a paraphrasing but my response was this: how was the story? The evolution of technology now provides unlimited tools for young filmmakers, however I feel that many young people I talk to today are more concerned with something looking cool rather than an engaging story. I refer many film enthusiasts to Martin Scorsese's documentary, "My Voyage To Italy" in which he discusses the influence of Italian Neo-Realism and the conditions in which he watched those films as a kid on Elizabeth Street in New York City.

    So what…

  • Pablo Alonso

    Review by Pablo Alonso ★★★★½

    I found myself completely taken over by this movie. A film maker caged in his apartment under house arrest, desperately trying to tell a story, and outside the world rages. It's hard to exactly describe what elevates this material so, maybe it's the unparalleled authenticity of it. Whatever it is this film is important.

  • scott gibbons

    Review by scott gibbons ★★★★

    Jafar Panahi A Iranian filmmaker facing Jail and 20 year Ban on Filmmaking, here we him living in his Apartment awaiting Judgement, as he decides to film this progress and also get a Script that was rejected by the Goverment and Key scenes spelled out, At times a Fasinating watch, a Odd watch, but knowing the events beneath it make it compelling and what is awaiting him if verdict comes through, his crime, making a film that was anti Goverment, you do get the sense of his time and place and effects this Judgement can have, after this he got out of the country and got events filmed out too, what we are seeing here, went to Cannes and got this as a film, a big F you to his goverment, Good for him.

  • Daniel Moseley

    Review by Daniel Moseley ★★★½

    I have to start by saying how much I respect the director and star of this homemade documentary, Jafar Panahi who's other films I've seen have been "The Mirror" (If you haven't seen The Mirror, this ruins the twist halfway through) and "Offside" in which at various moments he has scenes that are very outspoken against the Iranian governments portrayal of women and laws in general. They have some extremely stupid laws, in my opinion, and he exploits them to the full extent, especially in Offside which is about a female trying to sneak into a stadium to see a soccer game, women aren't allowed to see the men behaving as they do there so they aren't allowed in general.…

  • rythemovieguy

    Review by rythemovieguy ★★★½

    ......The power of film.

  • Andrew Dignan

    Review by Andrew Dignan ★★★½

    This is Not a Film (2011)
    Mojtaba Mirtahmasb & Jafar Panahi
    B

    I’m not well-versed enough in his work to say with any certainty whether this truly is a Panahi film (the title as denial not withstanding) but what I do recognize is that the true achievement is that the film exists at all. Operating in secret and flouting a legal order which prohibited him from directing a film for twenty years, the “film” finds Panahi documenting his home arrest as he awaits word on his appeal while personally demonstrating select scenes from an unproduced screenplay—which, not coincidentally, also deals with a person imprisoned in their home—were he actually able to make a film. Which this most certainly is not… nope……

  • tH0rX

    Review by tH0rX ★★

    While I admire and take seriously the whole affair of Jafar Panahi's trial and imprisonment, this film (?) is almost meaningless to me. I simply don't get it. Maybe the title is right and this is not a film, so maybe I should stop try judging it as one. But again, I simply don't get it.

  • Matt Turner

    Review by Matt Turner ★★★★½

    Sentenced to six years of house arrest, and a twenty year ban from filmmaking, Iranian filmmaker Jafar Parnahi produces this film/document with the aid of a documentary-maker friend, and smuggles it out of Iran on a USB stick hidden in a cake.

    Knowing that alone should be enough to sell anyone on this film. But ‘This is Not a Film’ is more than a symbolic act of dissent, as in the small moments captured as Parnahi stages the film that saw him banned, with him explaining the script and setting out the shots within his living room, his passion for filmmaking is displayed, and how much of a burden being unable to make films is shown to be.

    Its hard…

  • Grimbo

    Review by Grimbo ★★

    Yes, this is not a film in the entertaining sense but the reasons behind it are just, as a banned and persecuted iranian film maker secretly films a day in his life mainly behind the doors of his apartment.

    One of the highlights is when he is asked to watch his neighbours dog for a minute!