No Bears (2022) on Netflix
Barred from making films and from leaving Iran, a filmmaker directs a docudrama from Jaban, a village near the Iran-Turkey border. Gozal asks whether he photographed her with Solduz.
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- Netflix3.4/5
- IMDb7.2/105,563 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes100%
Trailer
Plot summary
In Jaban, a village near the Iran-Turkey border, a filmmaker rents a room and directs a docudrama by livestream while his crew shoots it across the border. The film is about Bakhtiar and Zara, a couple who seek false passports to leave Iran after years of government abuse. Bakhtiar has obtained a passport for Zara but cannot get one for himself. When the connection drops, the filmmaker is cut out of the shoot. At night Reza, his assistant director, drives him to the border line and tells him that smugglers are ready to take him into Turkey for a few days. The filmmaker, frightened, drives back to Jaban, where Gozal asks him whether he photographed her with her boyfriend, Solduz.
Cast
- Narges Delaramas Ghanbar's Mother
- Abdolreza Heydarias Reza
- Amir Davaras Solduz
- Darya Aleias Gozal
- Sinan Yusufogluas Sinan
- Rahim Abbasias Villager
- Ehsan Ahmad Khanpouras Kid
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Did you know?!Facts and trivia about No Bears (2022)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Jafar Panahi was arrested on July 11, 2022 and sentenced to six years in Evin prison on charges of "propaganda against the regime", after he had expressed solidarity with his arrested colleagues Mohammad Rasoulof and Mustafa Al-Ahmad.
- Venice Film Festival artistic director Alberto Barbera demanded the release of directors Panahi, Rasoulov and Al-Ahmad, and called on filmmakers to join a red-carpet flash mob before the September 9 premiere to protest Panahi's arrest.
- After No Bears was picked for the Golden Lion competition at the Venice Film Festival, Iran's Ministry of Culture dismissed it as a "political game [rather than a] movie [that] does not have a production license".
- No Bears won the Special Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival, with actors Mina Kavani and Reza Heydari accepting the award in Jafar Panahi's absence; he had competed for the Golden Lion a second time, having first won it for The Circle (2000).
- Jafar Panahi is said to have received more freedom to produce No Bears once the curfew imposed in 2022 over the spread of COVID-19 in Iran came to an end.
