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May 2001, Week 2

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Subject:
From:
Stephen Brophy <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Film and TV Studies Discussion List <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Mon, 7 May 2001 20:19:57 -0400
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>I thought this was a FILM discussion group.
>The outrage on both sides of the issue has been fascinating; I hope the
>airport incident shows up in a film that we all can debate.
>
>Gene Walz

Since this is something that happened to a FILM  director while he was on
his way to a FILM festival, I think it merits some of the attention it has
received here.  I talked with Panahi a couple of weeks after the incident,
in the process of interviewing him regarding his film.  He very properly
kept to the subject of the interview until we had covered all of my
questions, and only then raised this experience as something to discuss.
Therefore I find it hard to fathom the insinuations that he's doing all
this as some kind of publicity stunt, particularly from people who have
nothing else to go on than the rather over-emotional letter from Panahi
that Ms. Monti posted.
  A few other things to consider - Panahi is not the first film director to
be shabbily treated by the INS.  Tomás Gutiérrez Alea was detained and not
allowed to proceed when he tried to come to New York to receive an award
given him by the New York Circle of Film Critics.  While his films were
never as critical of the Cuban regime as "The Circle" is of the situation
in Iran, he could hardly have been considered a font of pro-Cuban
propaganda.
  - Why exactly should someone who is only going to stay in an airport for
a few hours even have to have something like a " transit visa?"  Why not
just keep all such people in a secure space until their departures and have
a lot less bureaucratic hassle?
  - The idea of racial profiling has come up more than once in these
discussions, and rightfully so.  On another front we can thank racial
profiling for the destructive riots in Cincinnatie recently.  While I doubt
that anyone here thinks that rioting is any more defensible than racial
profiling, it is hard not to see the cause-and-effect link, or to refuse to
figure out which problem should be worked on first.  The tone of our
government's response to problems in the world in cases like this adds to
the problems rather than doing anything to lessen them.
  I hope that this controversy doesn't distract you all from seeing "The
Circle" ("Dayereh" in Farsi) - while it's not a perfect movie, it is a very
convincing depiction of the way women are turned into criminals by the very
fact of their gender in regimes run by religious fundamentalists.
                                                Stephen

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