Jafar Panahi
Il Cerchio

Just as "Oro Rosso" is the daily life of despair, "The Circle" is the daily life of disparity.

Place? Obviously, Iran.

It could be said that Jafar Panahi is more interested in showing, rather than the striking extreme situations still present in his country, those insidious moments where women are clearly, but subtly, placed a step below men. Insidious moments precisely because they are accepted as normal. This is how Panahi is now telling us: "See? In my country, injustice is accepted, no one conceives a different way of thinking and living". Thus, a film about women. Women who struggle among a thousand difficulties in a Tehran that could swallow them. Women who painstakingly carve out a path for themselves, amid a thousand difficulties, indeed. "The Circle" is a film that, like "Oro Rosso," requires a lot of attention, because Jafar Panahi does not present us with a simplified version of Iran for tourists. He presents Iran as it is, without many embellishments, without excuses. That’s why it’s a film that hurts, because you watch it and realize how everything is so natural, so deeply ingrained that you fear it might be unchangeable.

A story that is many stories, many events that follow one another, passing the baton to denounce that there's something wrong. That the Iranian mindset must update, must change. Jafar Panahi describes the society in a raw way, I repeat, realistic and yet easy to understand. You just have to want to, and it would be beneficial if films like this were more viewed. We need them, we need to understand. So that they change, so that we change.