Houston has a wealth of events happening for film lovers in the coming weeks!  The Iranian Film Festival celebrates 19 years in Houston and the Houston Palestine Film Festival kicks off its 6th season.

This Friday and Saturday the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston will be hosting the second weekend of the 19th Annual Iranian Film Festival!  This is the longest running film festival in the Museum’s history.  The series continues at Rice Cinema on February 3-4.

On February 2 the Houston Palestine Film Festival kicks off its 6th season with the Houston Film Commission’s First Thursdays at the Fairview and a very special screening of three of our favorite short films.

Be Quiet by Sameh Zoabi
A Boy, a Wall and a Donkey by Hany Abu Assad
Kemo Sabe by Rana Kazkaz

When:  Thursday, February 2 from 8pm-10pm
Where: The Fairview on 315 Fairview St. Houston, TX 77006

This Is Not A Film

This Is Not A Film speaks volumes in its short running time. For anyone familiar with Iranian cinema it conjures the type of breaking-the-fourth-wall reality that graces most of the filmography of Abbas Kiarostami (Certified Copy), in particular the end of Taste of Cherry where the fictional scene suddenly shifts to behind the scenes footage of the film actually being made. Also typical of films from Iran are long takes, which This Is Not A Film uses as a badge of honor.

In December 2010 Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi was sentenced to six years imprisonment, as well as a 20-year ban on interviews, writing or directing films or leaving Iran. His crime was thought and intention. The official charge was for “assembly and colluding with the intention to commit crimes against the country’s national security and propaganda against the Islamic Republic.” The guy makes films.

That would be like Sean Penn being put in jail because he traveled to Iraq on his own dime and spoke with government officials at the height of the Bush administration, while also, at the same time, taking out full-page ads in the New York Times expressing his doubt of the then current administration. Panahi can’t win for losing. A few years ago while traveling internationally between film festivals Panahi was detained at New York’s JFK airport for ten hours, during which time he was chained with leg bracelets and imprisoned for ten hours. Homeland security wanted to fuck over the dude because he was Iranian and Iran wants to fuck him over because of his artistic credibility.

It’s not clear at this precise moment in time whether Panahi is languishing in prison or under house arrest in his luxury apartment, awaiting a hearing on his thought crime. One thing is certain; This Is Not A Film was made under duress and smuggled out of Iran. The irony is that you can see this film this weekend in the comfort of the Museum of Fine Arts, and possibly later this year when the film gets a domestic theatrical release. This Is Not A Film unwinds this weekend at the museum’s Brown Auditorium.

If you’re familiar with Panahi’s Crimson Gold (screenplay by Kiarostami) you remember the sequence where the lead character, an Iranian pizza delivery boy, comes to a party to drop off said pastry dinner item and has to wait while the police are conducting a raid on the same building. The sequence goes on forever, like two reels at least. At first we feel anxiety, then boredom and then the pure now of everyday reality. There’s a similar sequence in an elevator that closes This Is Not A Film and you have to wonder just how planned this improvisational film really is?

For the duration of This Is Not A Film we observe Panahi under house arrest in his Tehran condo, and what a spacious abode it is. Panahi can’t write or direct or be interviewed by reporters but he can tell the camera what his concept for his next (banned) film would be. Panahi lays out yellow tape on his beautiful living room Persian rug to show the borders of what would be the room in the opening scene from his film. At this point you may be having a flashback to the Lars von Trier film Dogville that unwinds with similar taped off walls in place of actual prop walls.

Outside Panahi’s condo the world is exploding. We hear students rioting in the streets and fireworks going off from his high-rise balcony. On his large screen HD television Panahi turns his gaze to footage of the March 2011 Japan earthquake. The film was evidently processed and smuggled out some time after that because it played at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival.

While we’re observing Panahi watch his television and smoke his cigarettes and brew his tea, we’re also hyper aware of his fragile state. By the way, the shots of the living room include plenty of views of his television set-up and his DVD collection. Not a single one of the rows and rows of DVDs are recognizable save for one – Buried. This Ryan Reynolds film is about a contract worker in Iraq who has been kidnapped and buried alive; the entire film takes place inside his coffin. Panahi knows how to use realism. This Is Not A Film documents a man who’s confined in a coffin of mindspeak.

– Michael Bergeron