Roman
Polanski: Is it time to let bygones be bygones?
Le Monde, France
Persecuting Polanski
and Panahi for No More than Talent
"In
Iran and the United States, for reasons entirely different of course, the
cinema has been gagged. … If the freedom of Panahi and Polanski is now so
constrained, it's because they are victims of what they are: tremendous
artists."
Jafar Panahi: One of the most influential filmmakers in the Iranian New Wave movement, he was arrested in March 2010 for making, 'an anti-regime film about post-election events.' He was released May 25.
On the stage last night at
the Louis-Lumière auditorium, an armchair was empty. Jafar Panahi wasn't there
among members of the jury of the 63rd Cannes Film Festival presided over by Tim
Burton. The winner of the 2000 Venice Film Festival Golden Lion award for The Circle, the
1997 Golden
Leopard at Locarno for The Mirror,
the 1995 Silver Bear at
the Berlinale for Offside, twice a winner at Cannes for White Balloon,
the 1995 winner of the Caméra d'or Prizefor Crimson Gold and 2003 Jury
Prize winner for Uncertain Regard), Jafar Panahi is detained - most likely
at the Evin Prison in Tehran, accused by Iranian authorities of having
"made an anti-regime film about post-election events."
Posted
by WORLDMEETS.US
Red carpet, sequins, camera
flashes and Hollywood zest, with Cate Blanchett and Russell Crowe from Robin
Hood. But the fact that this armchair remained empty was a sign that it would
be impossible to fully savor this festival. Especially since there was another
notable absentee: Roman Polanski, awaiting extradition from Switzerland to the
United States and still under house arrest in his Gstaad chalet. Some days ago,
the director of the Pianist published on the Web site La Règle du Jeu an
op-ed entitled, I
Can Remain Silent No Longer. There we learned that last February 26, Roger
Gunson, the [retired] deputy district attorney who investigated the matter for
which Polanski was condemned 33 years ago, declared under oath that Roman
Polanski served his entire sentence imposed in 1977 by Judge Rittenband at the
Chino penitentiary.
On the eve of the opening of
the Festival, several filmmakers, including Jean-Luc Godard, Agnès Varda and
Bertrand Tavernier, made public a petition entitled "Cannes with
Polanski," in which they say in part: "Conscious of some basic rules
of human rights, such as the impossibility of judging and condemning a man
twice for the same offense and aware that the extradition request made by the
United States is based on a lie, (we call on) the Swiss authorities and implore
them not to believe the word of Governor Schwarzenegger and his
prosecutors."
In Iran and the United
States, for reasons entirely different of course, the cinema has been gagged.
And above all, we shouldn't attribute this call to action to the fact that these
two creators are privileged or protected by their status as recognized
filmmakers. Quite the contrary. If the freedom of Panahi and Polanski is now so
constrained, it's because they are victims of what they are: immense artists.
