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Iranian auteur Jafar Panahi has called for changes to how features are submitted for the international film category of the Academy Awards, supporting independent filmmakers in non-democratic nations.
Speaking at Busan International Film Festival today (September 18), the acclaimed director argued that the Academy should offer a solution for filmmakers who require government permission to submit their work.
“We have a slight problem with the Academy and its international selection,” said Panahi, who received the Asian Filmmaker of the Year honour at the festival’s opening night ceremony last night.
“The Academy does not have a specific programme for us. When making films, we can send them to international festivals and don’t have the problem of getting an official permit from Iran. But when it comes to the Academy, we need to get permission from our own government.”
The director of this year’s Palme d’Or winner, It Was Just An Accident, saw his film selected as France’s entry for the Oscars yesterday. The Persian-language feature is eligible due to its status as a co-production with France’s Les Film Pelleas, while Memento Distribution will handle its release in France. It will screen at Busan in the festival’s Gala Presentations strand.
Panahi added that Iran is not the only country to be impacted by government-sanctioned submissions to the category. “I think the Academy should find a way to not tie the filmmakers to their governments,” he said. “All filmmakers who are independent must get together and find a way so that when they want to submit their films to the Academy, they don’t face this kind of problem with the government in their own country.”
Iran submitted Ali Zarnegar’s Cause Of Death: Unknown for the upcoming Oscars, selected by a nine-member committee. It Was Not An Accident did not screen for this selection committee.
Panahi has a long history with Busan, attending its first edition in 1996 with The White Balloon, which won the Camera d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival the previous year.
His subsequent work includes The Circle, which won the Golden Lion at Venice in 2000; Crimson Gold, which picked up the jury prize at Cannes in Un Certain Regard in 2003; and Offside, winner of Berlin’s Silver Bear in 2006.
He was banned from making films for 20 years after being arrested in 2009 for participating in a ceremony to commemorate a demonstrator killed during protest marches that followed the re-election of Mahmud Ahmadinezad.
But he returned in 2011 with documentary This Is Not a Filmi, which premiered at Cannes, followed by 2013 Berlinale Silver Bear winner Closed Curtain and 2015 Golden Bear winner Taxi Teheran.
Arrested again in 2022, accused of anti-regime propaganda, he was released from prison in 2023 and made It Was Just An Accident, inspired by his incarceration. On top of his Busan honour and Oscar submission, Rome Film Festival this week announced it would honour Panahi with a lifetime achievement award.
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