The Circle Q&A Session

Jafar Panahi's The White Balloon, a small-scale work which portrayed the adventure of a lovely girl, has enjoyed great popularity in Japan. With The Circle, he has come up with a new style and theme, portraying the harsh conditions of women in Iranian society with vivid reality. "I had doubts over what kind of fate the girls whom I had portrayed in my past works would face when they grew up and go out into society. That prompted me to film this work." "There are a lot of "circles" around people in this world. Circles of society, circles of politics, circles of religion...how can we enlarge the rims of such circles, I think that's what everyone's trying hard and living for."�@ One after another, young women on parole, a mother on the verge of abandoning her own child on the roadside and a prostitute on the street corner, confront tragic reality. In response to the audience question "Why did you chose an ending where there is absolutely no hope?", Panahi went straight to the point: "Because I have decided to follow my own conscience. If you depict the reality of society with no lies, the tone inevitably ends up dark." Looking slightly distressed, Panahi commented as follows "I haven't yet gotten permission to run the film in Iran. It is unfortunate since this piece deals with Iran's social problems."