No Bears(HKAFF 2022)

Despite being banned from filmmaking by the Iranian government, Jafar Panahi managed to make five films that playfully critiqued authority while examining the art of filmmaking. Completed just before his recent incarceration, Panahi’s latest film once again stars Panahi as a fictional version of himself. While remotely directing a film from a small border village, he gets caught in a local scandal when village elders demand that he surrender photographic evidence of a forbidden relationship. A bold and very tongue-in-cheek meta-commentary on being trapped in his homeland, Panahi’s film has been made even more poignant by his current circumstance.