An Iranian masterwork opens with its director behind bars

NEW YORK — After being arrested for creating antigovernment propaganda in 2010, the Iranian director Jafar Panahi was banned from making films for 20 years. Film critic Justin Chang of The Los Angeles Times called “No Bears” 2022’s best movie. A week after “No Bears” premiered at the Venice Film Festival, with Panahi already behind bars, 22-year-old Mahsa Amini died while being held by Iran’s morality police. In the outcry that followed Alidoosti’s arrest, Farhadi — the director of “A Separation” and “A Hero” — called for Alidoosti’s release “alongside that of my other fellow cineastes Jafar Panahi and Mohammad Rasoulof and all the other less-known prisoners whose only crime is the attempt for a better life.” “If showing such support is a crime, then tens of millions of people of this land are criminals,” Farhadi wrote on Instagram. When “No Bears” played at the New York Film Festival, Kavani read a statement from Panahi.