No Bears
The South Asian Film Festival of Montreal (MSFF) is dedicated to exploring and introducing Montreal audiences to the work of filmmakers of South Asian origin. This 13th edition is an opportunity to discover many recent works, both documentary and fiction, that focus on the Indian subcontinent and its diaspora.
Winner of the Special Jury Prize, 2022 Venice International Film Festival
In an Iranian village near the border, a director witnesses one love story while filming another. Will tradition and politics get the better of both?
Jafar Panahi
Jafar Panahi is an Iranian filmmaker, screenwriter, producer, and editor. He his among the most influential figures of the Iranian New Wave. He won the top prizes at Europe's three major film festivals: the Golden Lion at the Venice International Film Festival in 2000 for The Circle, the Golden Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival in 2005 for Taxi, and the Palme d'or at the Cannes Film Festival in 2025 for It Was Just an Accident. His work, rooted in neorealism and centered on the lives of women, children, and the marginalized, constitutes a critical portrait of the social, political, and gendered structures of contemporary Iran. In 2010, he was sentenced to six years in prison and a 20-year ban on filmmaking activities, based on charges of "propaganda against the Islamic Republic". Even under legal restrictions, he continued to make films without permission, many of them produced semi-clandestinely.
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