No Bears (2022)   Directing: Jafar Panahi

No Bears by Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi is a love story that pushes back boundaries and defies censorship restrictions on both a mental and physical level. Like his earlier works, the film has autobiographical elements. With No Bears, Panahi has found an impressive way – though dangerous for him – to fight for artistic freedom in Iran. The film is also a complex parable about the oppressive stagnation of a society and its panicked rejection of change. The city lives under the pressures of the authority, the village under the constraints of superstition. How can art encourage a society to change when change is not wanted?