The Screening Files - Part 2
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The pattern is not limited to Gaza. It goes back decades. Different countries. Same sequence.
Monday covered three Gaza film cases. Today: Iran, Indonesia, the West Bank, and Syria. A director sentenced to a twenty-year ban on filmmaking who kept filming. A BAFTA winner banned in the country it documented. An Oscar nominee detained at the US border on the way to the ceremony. A film made inside a siege that won two major awards. Primary sources only.
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Jafar Panahi · This Is Not a Film · Iran · 2011 · Government ban on filmmaking · Cannes Un Certain Regard01 / 04
Sentenced to a twenty-year ban on making films. He kept filming. The film was smuggled out of Iran inside a birthday cake.
In 2010, an Iranian court sentenced director Jafar Panahi to six years in prison and issued a twenty-year ban on making films, writing screenplays, giving interviews to foreign media, and travelling abroad. An appeals court later suspended the prison term. The ban on filmmaking remained. The legal proceedings are documented. BBC reporting on the sentence, 2010 · Iranian judiciary official statements, 2010.
Panahi continued to work. In 2011, he and co-director Mojtaba Mirtahmasb filmed inside Panahi's Tehran apartment. This Is Not a Film documents Panahi reading through a screenplay he had been sentenced for planning to direct. He walks through shots he cannot legally make. The film was smuggled out of Iran on a USB drive concealed inside a birthday cake and submitted to the Cannes Film Festival. Cannes Film Festival 2011 official programme.
The film screened in Un Certain Regard at Cannes 2011. Panahi did not attend. Under the terms of the court order, he could not leave Iran. The film entered international distribution from inside a country whose government had legally prohibited its director from making it. Panahi has continued to make films under the ban. Several have screened at Berlin, Venice, and Cannes in the years since. Cannes Film Festival 2011 official programme · Jafar Panahi's documented accounts of the legal proceedings.
Source: Cannes Film Festival 2011 official programme, Un Certain Regard selection · Jafar Panahi's documented accounts of the legal proceedings · BBC reporting on sentence and ban, 2010 · Iranian judiciary official statements, 2010
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The Act of Killing · Indonesia · 2012 · BAFTA Best Documentary · Oscar nominated · Banned in Indonesia02 / 04
Won the BAFTA. Nominated for the Oscar. Banned in Indonesia. The perpetrators it filmed have never been prosecuted. Both facts remain.
The Act of Killing, directed by Joshua Oppenheimer, documents former death squad members responsible for the 1965-66 mass killings in Indonesia. The killings followed an attempted coup. Indonesian government estimates record approximately 500,000 deaths. Other documented estimates place the figure higher. No prosecutions have been brought. Yale University Genocide Studies Program published record · Oppenheimer's documented accounts.
Oppenheimer filmed the perpetrators re-enacting the killings in styles they chose: gangster films, westerns, musicals. The subjects participated voluntarily. The film records their accounts in their own words. The Act of Killing won the BAFTA Award for Best Documentary in 2014 and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature at the 86th ceremony. BAFTA 2014 award record · Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, 86th Oscar nominations.
The film was banned from public screening in Indonesia. The Indonesian government did not publish a formal rationale for the ban. The ban was not lifted. The killers documented in the film have not been prosecuted. Both the ban and the absence of prosecutions are on the public record. Oppenheimer's documented accounts of the Indonesian screening ban.
Source: BAFTA 2014 Best Documentary award record · Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, 86th Oscar nominations · Joshua Oppenheimer's documented accounts of the Indonesian screening ban · Yale University Genocide Studies Program published record
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Five Broken Cameras · Emad Burnat · West Bank · Oscar nominated · Detained at LAX · February 201303 / 04
His film was nominated for the Oscar. He flew to the ceremony. US federal officers detained him at the airport. His family was held with him.
Emad Burnat is a Palestinian farmer from the West Bank village of Bil'in. He filmed his village from 2005 as Israeli authorities demolished structures and constructed a separation barrier. Five of his cameras were damaged or destroyed during that period. Five Broken Cameras, co-directed with Israeli filmmaker Guy Davidi, takes its name from them. It was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature at the 85th ceremony. Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, 85th Oscar nominations, February 2013.
In February 2013, Burnat arrived at Los Angeles International Airport with his family to attend the ceremony. US Customs and Border Protection officers detained him and questioned him. His family was held with him. Filmmaker Michael Moore learned of the detention and contacted the Academy. Burnat was subsequently released. Emad Burnat's documented account of the LAX detention · Contemporaneous press reporting, February 2013.
US Customs and Border Protection did not publish a public statement identifying the grounds for the detention. The nomination was on record. The ceremony was the documented purpose of the trip. The sequence of the detention and the subsequent release is on the contemporaneous press record. No official explanation was published. Contemporaneous press reporting, February 2013.
Source: Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, 85th Oscar nominations, February 2013 · Emad Burnat's documented account of the LAX detention · Contemporaneous press reporting, February 2013 · Sundance Film Festival selection record
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The question. Series complete.04 / 04
The films were made inside the events. The events were documented by the UN separately. The awards were given. The question the record leaves open is what the awards change.
For Sama, directed by Waad al-Kateab and Edward Watts, was filmed inside Aleppo from 2012 to 2016 during the siege. It won the BAFTA Award for Best Documentary and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature at the 92nd ceremony in 2020. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and Physicians for Human Rights separately documented strikes on medical facilities in Aleppo during the period the film covers. The siege ended in December 2016. The UN Security Council passed Resolution 2328 that month. The film is a primary record from inside those events. The documentation by the UN and by the film exist simultaneously. Six cases across two parts of this series. Iran, Indonesia, the West Bank, Syria, Gaza. The sequence is in the record.
Source: BAFTA 2020 Best Documentary award record · Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, 92nd Oscar nominations · UN OCHA, Aleppo documentation · Physicians for Human Rights, medical facility strikes record · UN Security Council Resolution 2328, December 2016
Some stories are buried on purpose. We dig.
The Screening Files · Part 2 of 2 · Series complete.The Screening Files is a two-part series. Part 1 covered the Gaza film cases. Part 2 covered the pattern across Iran, Indonesia, the West Bank, and Syria. Primary sources only. Follow UNSILENCED for two new stories every week.