The first confirmed title of this edition is the Iranian film TAXI, the winner of the Golden Bear and of the FIPRESCI Award at the 2015 Berlinale.
Similar to his two previous films, This Is Not a Film (2011) and Closed Curtain (2013) – filmed in secret in the director's apartment and in a friend's home – TAXI was made by Jafar Panahi despite the 20 years ban from making cinema, a sentence received in 2010 from the Iranian authorities and vehemently challenged by filmmakers, festival directors and journalists from around the world. Abiding, once again, to the "closed space" rule, Jafar Panahi and his non-professional actors, who are driven around town by the filmmaker turned taxi driver and whose identity remains secret, paint an honest, funny and deeply human portrait of Tehran today.
Shortly after the film's premiere at Berlin was announced, Panahi released an official statement in which he promised to continue making films despite the ban and said "Nothing can prevent me from making films since when being pushed to the ultimate corners I connect with my inner-self and, in such private spaces, despite all limitations, the necessity to create becomes even more of an urge."
TAXI is the third film by Jafar Panahi selected in the Berlinale competition after Offside(2006, Grand Jury Prize) and Closed Curtain (Best Screenplay). At the same time, Jafar Panahi is, at only 54 years of age, one of the most awarded filmmakers in the world: The Camera d'Or Award in Cannes for his debut feature The White Balloon (1995) and The „Un certain regard” Jury Prize for Crimson Gold (2003), The Golden Lion and The FIPRESCI Award in Venice for The Circle (2000) and The Golden Leopard in Locarno for The Mirror(1997).
Bucharest International Film Festival is organized by CHARTA Foundation with the support of the Romanian Film Centre (CNC), under the High Patronage of His Royal Highness Prince Radu of Romania.
The competition, the Panorama parallel section and the special events of Bucharest IFF will be made public in the following weeks.
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