No Exit 2 – Closed Curtain

We recently published a posting about the Palestinian film maker and artist Khaled Jarrar who is denied exit from the Gaza strip to attend his very own exhibition opening in New York City.

Related to this and to honor the extraordinary work that was produced, the case of Jafar Panahi is introduced.

The Iranian dissident and film maker has to live under house arrest and is neither allowed to travel internationally nor to give interviews due to his open support of the opposition party of Iran´s election in 2009. Even-though he is banned of creating any artistic work until 2030, he managed to produce and to publish three outstanding movies: The White Balloon, The Mirror, This Is Not A Film. For this movies, Jafar Panahi has won awards at the Chicago, Cannes and Berlin film festivals. The fourth one is his most recent movie Closed Curtain which combines documentary and fictious elements. Jafar Panahis’ former works and this movie are connected by his artificially and critically examination of the social circumstances in his country Iran.

Closed Curtain:

A screenwriter goes into hiding with his dog after the regime declares dogs “impure” and bans them from walking in public (this is an actual law). In the darkened rooms of a seaside villa, a Pirandello-inspired drama unfurls with Panahi sometimes playing himself, acting out his most melancholy fantasies as both neighbors and strangers appear and disappear with eerie regularity, much as you would expect them to in any society in which the absurd has become the norm.

The film Closed Curtain is daily shown at 12:45, 3:10. 5:20, 7:40 and 10:00 in the Film Forum in New York from 9th of July – 22 of July.

Film Forum. 209 West Houston Street. NY,  New York 10014.

Furthermore it is shown in selected theatres in the US and Canade. Check the dates and theatres here.

You can also order the film here.