As the Berlinale, the 61st annual Berlin Film Festival, commences, support from the international arts community continues to grow for Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi, who was sentenced this past December to six years in prison and a 20-year ban on making films.
Panahi was also banned from traveling and could not go to Berlin, to which he was invited to serve on the festival’s jury. His counterparts have voiced their support for him and symbolically left his chair empty on the stage.
Isabella Rossellini, the Italian-American actress and chair of this year’s jury, said the 
festival had not given up hope that Panahi would join them. As she sat next to his empty chair, she noted the space served as a reminder that “freedom of speech is at the base of freedom of art and film-making.”
“I request the authorities there to recognize that he is a great talent and a great ambassador for his country and his culture,” said fellow jury member Aamir Khan, a Bollywood star. “I really wish he was here. I think all of us are with him.”
Despite his absence, Panahi “is a very big presence,” at the Berlinale said Rossellini. The 10-day festival will show “Offside,” Panahi’s film about young women dressed as boys in order to attend a soccer game, in its main showcase as well as four other award-winning films, such as “The Circle” and “Crimson Gold,” by Panahi throughout the festival.
“The fact that festivals like the Berlinale declare their solidarity and leave a place for Panahi on their juries is more than just a gesture. Because, if the Iranian government tramples on the rights of its own people, why should it not do the same with the international community,” German-based documentary filmmaker Ali Samadi Ahadi told the Berlin magazine Tip. Samadi Ahadi, Asghar Farhadi, award-winning director of “About Elly,” and author-activist Mehranghiz Kar are among other Iranians to be recognized at the Berlinale.
Others entertainers have also declared solidarity with Panahi. More than 800 participants of the International Film Festival Rotterdam in the Netherlands chose to have their photos taken in police mugshot format while holding the names of Panahi and Mohammad Rasolef, who received the same sentence as Panahi.
In addition to signing a joint letter of protest and speaking out against the incarceration in a speech at the Beyoglu Cinema in Istanbul, Turkish filmmaker Semih Kaplanoglu rejected the best screenplay award from Iran’s Fajr International Film Festival for his film “Bal” (Honey).
Panahi himself has not remained voiceless. Rossellini read an open letter from the filmmaker at the Berlinale’s opening ceremony last Thursday in which he spoke of his experience and wishes for the future.
“They have condemned me to 20 years of silence. Yet in my dreams, I scream for a time when we can tolerate each other, respect each other’s opinions, and live for each other,” he said.
As others continue to fight for him, Panahi commented, “The world of a filmmaker is marked by the interplay between reality and dreams. The filmmaker uses reality as his inspiration, paints it with the color of his imagination, and creates a film that is a projection of his hopes and dreams.…
“The reality is I have been kept from making films for the past five years and am now officially sentenced to be deprived of this right for another 20 years. But I know I will keep on turning my dreams into films in my imagination.”