Los subterfugios digitales de Jafar Panahi

Two themes can be found in Jafar Panahi’s acclaimed cinematography (1960): the exposition of contradictions within Iranian society and the questioning of the cinematographic device. Both issues have been continuously addressed in the last decade, despite the prohibition over film directing imposed by the ayatollahs. This has been possible, to a large extent, thanks to the opportunities offered by the digitalization of the recording and the distribution methods of audiovisual material. In films such as This is not a film (2011) and Ta x i (2015), Panahi continues with the examination of cinematographic conventions that he began in The Mirror (1997), and invites to see a film that “is made by itself ”, that is, a device that works without the involvement of a conscious director or narrator, but by the actions of a cameraman (who does not accept instructions) or the operation of an artifact (the camera in the cab of the taxi or in the cell phone of one of the passengers). In this way, Panahi avoids government censorship, while making evident certain features of audiovisual narration in the context of digitalization and new technologies.