Sydney Film Festival Announces 2025 Retrospective

by FilmInk Staff

Sydney Film Festival will present JAFAR PANAHI: CINEMA IN REBELLION, a major retrospective of the acclaimed Iranian filmmaker’s work, screening as part of the 72^nd Sydney Film Festival from 4–15 June 2025.

The retrospective, curated by Anke Leweke, will include all 10 of Panahi’s feature films, offering Australian audiences a rare opportunity to experience the evolution of a visionary artist who has persistently defied censorship and persecution to tell urgent, human stories from inside Iran.

Jafar Panahi is widely regarded as one of the most significant figures in contemporary Iranian cinema. His films, often made in defiance of official restrictions on filmmaking, explore the lived realities of people in Iran – particularly women – within a tightly controlled social framework. Despite decades of travel bans, threats of imprisonment, and official prohibitions on filmmaking, Panahi has continued to create internationally acclaimed work, often under extraordinary conditions.

In 2023, Panahi’s travel ban was lifted for the first time in 14 years, following his release from prison after a hunger strike sparked international outcry. His work remains a powerful symbol of resilience, freedom of expression, and the role of cinema in imagining a more just society.

Jafar Panahi said, “I am greatly honoured to have Sydney Film Festival present a complete retrospective of my films. One of the objectives of any filmmaker is for your work to reach an audience, so I thank the audiences in Sydney for always being so receptive to my films, and to Iranian cinema. I hope my films will offer an insight into the lives, struggles and triumphs of the people I see around me every day in Iran.”

Sydney Film Festival Director Nashen Moodley said, “Jafar Panahi’s films are acts of extraordinary artistic resistance. His work is deeply compassionate, politically daring, and cinematically brilliant – yet all imbued with a deep love of his culture, and often with a wry wit. This retrospective is a chance to see how one of cinema’s most vital voices has continued to speak, despite efforts to silence him.”

The retrospective includes:

The White Balloon (1995)

The Mirror (1997)

The Circle (2000)

Crimson Gold (2003)

Offside (2006)

This Is Not a Film (2011)

Closed Curtain (2013)

Tehran Taxi (2015)

Three Faces (2018)

No Bears (2022)

The full Sydney Film Festival program will be announced on Wednesday 7 May 2025.