'Offside' - Jafar Panahi Q&A

David Jenkins catches up with the director of footballing flick 'Offside'

Jun  7 2006

Alongside Abbas Kiarostami, Jafar Panahi is one of the leading lights of the New Iranian cinema movement and, although highly regarded in Europe, his previous two films ('The Circle' and 'Crimson Gold') were forbidden by the Islamic Government of Iran. Panahi began his career as a documentarian – a form which has helped paint the style of his more recent fictional work – and his films often question the idiosyncrasies which arise in modern Islam.

What was your influence behind making a film centred on a football match?

There was an article I read by a very famous sporting journalist in Iran about the history of women in sport and it discussed how women weren't allowed to watch sporting events at stadiums in ancient Greece. There was a woman whose son was a champion sportsman and she wasn't allowed to see him compete, so she decided to dress up as a man in order to gain access.

How was the film orchestrated? Was it filmed during an actual match?

It's a kind of docudrama shot in real time. Most of the scenes were shot as the game was happening. When you see the film, you can believe that what you're watching is actually real.

That must have led to a lot of improvisation from the actors?

All of the actors I used were non-professional anyway, so it's not really possible to control everything captured on camera, even if a tight script was being followed. Most of the time I just left the actors to see the reactions they would produce, and then based on that I would plan the next sequence. When I was shooting the film, I didn't really know what was going to happen. We desperately wanted Iran to win, but we didn't know whether they would or not.

Had you planned for the eventuality of Iran losing?

I was just going with it as things happening. However, the film was always based on Iran winning. Iran needed to score in the second-half in order to up the pace of the film, and fortunately for us that's exactly what happened.

The ending of 'Offside' is different to your previous films as it seems to offer hope for the future. Was that intended?

Yes exactly, I wanted to show the hope I got that from that game. Eleven players come together with different techniques and ideologies and characters, but they all have one goal. It's a metaphor for an entire nation. The soldiers and the women in the film are all different people, but they all have the same thing in their mind and that's Iran winning the match.

Although the story is about how women are treated in Iran, the male characters are also given a story – is there any comment being made on youth in general?

I tried to present the limitations of life in Iran and what we can and can't do. In this film you can see that women can't go inside the stadium, but the film as a whole is far deeper. Like 'The Circle', you could see the individual stories involving the separate women, but in the background you could see how the society is operating. I find stories which will allow me to talk about other issues.

Is it difficult to make films with explosive subject matters in Iran?

It is difficult, of course. These difficulties have been there both before and after the revolution. The most important thing to the filmmaker is to make the film and go through all these difficulties such as censorship afterwards. You've just got to get out there and make it.

'Offside' is out on Friday.

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