MELBOURNE INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL
TEHRAN TAXI
(82 minutes)
Comedy Theatre, August 1; Forum, August 3 and 11
The celebrated Iranian director Jafar Panahi (The White Balloon, The Circle) has now made three films in secret since he was banned from filmmaking for "propaganda against the Islamic Republic".
Despite the threat of a six-year jail term, he dramatises his own life in Tehran Taxi.
Panahi plays a jaunty taxi driver who takes passengers around Tehran – often refusing their money and recognised by some who wonder why a famous filmmaker is driving a cab with a camera on the dashboard.
His colourful fares include a couple arguing about the value of recent hangings for extortion, a badly injured man who is desperate to make a will leaving everything to his wife who would otherwise have no legal right to their possessions, and a barred lawyer who continues to work for political prisoners, including a girl arrested for attending a volleyball game.
Screened without credits to protect the cast and crew, Tehran Taxi is a cleverly subversive film, entertaining but also hinting at the dark threats to artists and dissidents in Iran.
Already the winner of the top prize at the Berlin Film Festival, it was well received at the Sydney Film Festival in June.
