OFFSIDE is part of Asia Society tribute to imprisoned Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi
OFFSIDE (Jafar Panahi, 2006)
Asia Society
725 Park Ave. at 70th St.
Saturday, February 26, 3:00
Series continues through March 11
Admission: free with advance registration
212-288-6400
www.asiasociety.org
www.sonyclassics.com/offside
Filmed on location in and around Tehran’s Azadi Stadium and featuring a talented cast of nonprofessional actors, Jafar Panahi’s Offside is a brilliant look at gender disparity in modern-day Iran. Although it is illegal for girls to go to soccer games in Iran — because, among other reasons, the government does not think it’s appropriate for females to be in the company of screaming men who might be cursing and saying other nasty things — many try to get in, facing arrest if they get caught. Offside is set during an actual match between Iran and Bahrain; a win will put Iran in the 2006 World Cup. High up in the stadium, a small group of girls, dressed in various types of disguises, have been captured and are cordoned off, guarded closely by some soldiers who would rather be watching the match themselves or back home tending to their sheep. The girls, who can hear the crowd noise, beg for one of the men to narrate the game for them. Meanwhile, an old man is desperately trying to find his daughter to save her from some very real punishment that her brothers would dish out to her for shaming them by trying to get into the stadium. Despite its timely and poignant subject matter, Offside is a very funny film, with fine performances by Sima Mobarak Shahi, Shayesteh Irani, Ida Sadeghi, Golnaz Farmani, Mahnaz Zabihi, and Nazanin Sedighzadeh as the girls and M. Kheymeh Kabood as one of the soldiers.
The film, selected for the 2006 New York Film Festival, is screening at the Asia Society as part of its two-week tribute to Panahi, who experienced visa problems when trying to come to New York for the opening of Offside and was later arrested by the Iranian government for his support of the opposition Green movement, sentenced to six years in prison and given a twenty-year ban on making new films. The series opens February 25 with The White Meadows (Mohammad Rasoulof, 2009), which Panahi edited (director Rasoulof is also serving a six-year sentence) and will be introduced by Columbia professor Hamid Dabashi and production designer Shahram Karimi. Dabashi will also introduce the March 4 screening of Panahi’s Crimson Gold (2003), while Duke associate professor Negar Mottahedeh will introduce Offside and the March 11 showing of The Circle (2000). In addition, the Asia Society will host a panel discussion on March 2 at 6:45, “A Tribute to Jafar Panahi and Creative Expression in Iran,” with Dabashi, Mottahedeh, Hadi Ghaemi of the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran, and Film Society of Lincoln Center program director Richard Peña. All events are free with advance registration at the above website.