Arrested on political charges, sentenced to six years in jail and a twenty-year ban on directing, travelling abroad, and giving interviews, the Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi – under house arrest in his Tehran apartment while awaiting the outcome of his appeal – speaks to a video camera. He eats breakfast to the sound of explosions and police sirens, takes a call from his lawyer, and welcomes a friend – another filmmaker, Mojtaba Mirtahmasb.
Mirtahmasb wields the camera while Panahi delineates a room with tape on the rug and acts out scenes from the script of a movie he wasn’t allowed to make, about a young woman who is locked in her house by her devout parents. Even a visit from the interim custodian evokes persecution, with his reminiscences of the night of Panahi’s arrest and a glimpse through the barrier at the property line to the city at large, with its fires of festivity and revolt.
Panahi depicts his plight with warm, self-deprecating humour via the droll trivia of his domestic routine – including feeding the pet iguana – but he shows a DVD box on a shelf that cries out with the grim truth of his situation: “Buried.” - Richard Brody, The New Yorker