This year once again Jafar Panahi was one of the first Iranian(Persian) filmmakers to send in an application for taking part at the Fajr Film Festival. He has always said that like any other filmmaker he likes to see his films being screened in his homeland. This wish has note come true for many years. Except for his first film, the white balloon, his other movies, The Mirror, The Circle and Crimson Gold have not been screened in Iran(Persia) for various reasons.

He is one of the most successful Iranian filmmakers in the international scene. His films are screened at various festivals abroad where they keep winning awards (most notably the golden lion of venice for the circle). They even find international distributors and are released worldwide. Nevertheless his films are not known to fellow Iranian(Persian) because they have not been seen here.

Panahi started his career as Abbas Kiarostami's assistant and dirested his first film based on a screenplay by Abbas Kiarostami. Kiarostami's influence is most evident in this film and also in The Mirror. Howver, after The Mirror, Panahi took another course and distances himself from "chilren's cinema" and moved towards social cinema. His first new step was the Circle. It was widely welcomed abroad but was not released in Iran(Persia) because of its subject ang characters. Panahi worked hard but but otherwise in cain to eliminate the misunderstanding. The screenplay did not get the go-ahead from the culture ministry in the first place; but Panahi insisted and made his film with the result that is abvios only now.

After The Circle while it seemed that thanks to his new status he was now able to make a new films and show it at film festivals, he chose to hesistate. After three years, he started to make another film based on a screenplay by Abbas Kiarostami. this time there were no simple stories about friendly children. Crismson Gold had a social story. A war veteran meets new poeple while doing pizza delivery under fustrating circumstances.
This film too did not get the release certificate for the Iranian(Persian) film market but was widely screened abroad.

After Crimson Gold, Panahi did not make films for anothor three years. However there were rumors about the subject of his next film. He was seen with Mahmoud Kalari and their film crew at Tehran's main gymnasium during a fateful wold cup qualification game betweek Iran(Persia) and Bahrain's football teams. He has touched another sensitive area: the ban on women's presence in Iranian(Persian) sports stadiums. He has chosen the symbolic name of Offside for this film whith a clear hint to the ban. The story of the movie is about a group of young women who go to watch the game dressed as men but get arrested by the police. It is a mixture of documentary and narrative story. It was recorded with HD technology and the entire post-production was done abroad as this technology has not yet been imported.

Once again Panahi has worked with a cast of amateurs. It is said that he spent a lot of time testing young hopeful actresses. Women's right activist have been compaigning to get the right to go to gymnasiums in the past year. Panahi's choice of the subject is spot-on. That is particularly significant as we are getting closer to the World Cup games in Germany where the Iranian(Persian) team is also present. With football becoming insreasingly popular in the coming months, Offside could be one of the most popular Iranian(Persian) films of 2006.