NO BEARS
[خرس نیست] [KHERS NIST]
One of the world's great cinematic artists, Jafar Panahi has been carefully crafting self-reflexive works about artistic, personal and political freedom in Iran for the past three decades, despite his oppression at the hands of the Iranian government. In NO BEARS, as in many of his recent titles, Panahi plays a fictionalized version of himself, in this case relocated to a rural border town to remotely direct a new film in nearby Turkey — the story of which comes to mirror disturbing events that begin to occur around him. As he struggles to complete his film, Panahi finds himself thrust in the middle of a local scandal, confronting the opposing pulls of tradition and progress, city and country and belief and evidence, as well as the universal desire to reject oppression. NO BEARS premiered at the 2022 Venice International Film Festival where it won the Special Jury Prize — a distinction Panahi was unable to receive in person, as he had just been sentenced to six months imprisonment; he was only released months later after beginning a hunger strike. (Note adapted from Sideshow and Janus Films.) DIR/SCR/PROD Jafar Panahi. Iran, 2022, color, 107 min. In Persian with English subtitles. NOT RATED
Run Time: 107 Minutes
Opening Date: Friday, March 06, 2026
Genre: Drama, romance
