Screening Schedule

In this year’s Venice Biennale, an empty seat was left for Jafar Panahi at the festival press conference. Currently in jail, the Iranian director has spent the past 12 years in and out of house arrest, banned from traveling or making films outside Iran, and faced with numerous obstacles making films at home. That hasn’t stopped him from delivering a film full of his ideas and anxieties. No Bears portrays two parallel love stories. In both, the lovers are troubled by hidden, inevitable obstacles, the force of superstition, and the mechanics of power. A piece of inventive, illuminating autofiction becomes an act of resistance (as any other film of the director), by simply narrating a story of escape: a couple who lives in a village close to the porous Iranian-Azeri borders tries to flee to Paris with stolen passports, a film crew following them, a second young couple trying to escape a forced marriage and a village full of gossips. A self-reflective masterpiece that highlights what is truly at stake when defending one’s creative freedom.