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review

Jafar Panahi in a scene from "This Is Not a Film"

Directed by Jafar Panahi and Mojtaba Mirtahmasb (Iran)

Put under house arrest and banned from filmmaking, Iranian director Jafar Panahi ( The Circle, The White Balloon) did the only thing he could do: He made a film from his apartment and sneaked it out of his country on a USB stick in a cake. This 75-minute home movie, shot by his colleague Mojtaba Mirtahmasb, and partly on Panahi's iPhone, is deft and ironic, mixing banal reality with poignant metaphor in a typically Iranian style. Between breakfast, phone calls and caring for his daughter's iguana, he describes and acts out the film he wants to make, while New Year's fireworks explode in the streets outside his building.

Sept. 8, 9:45 p.m., Lightbox 2; Sept. 9, 4:45 p.m., Lightbox 3

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