Offside

Star Review

Almost incredibly, this is Iranian gender politics played out as broad farce, shading to the desperately absurd, as a number of girls try to attend Iran's clinching world cup qualifier against Bahrain. They are discovered and put in a holding pen, there to wait for the 'vice squad' bus to take them away. Much of the bitter comic interplay comes during this sequence - filmed just outside the stadium as the actual Iran-Bahrain qualifying match was playing on the other side - as streetwise Tehrani girls badger provincial soldiers who can give no sensible answers as to why they can't be let in. A camaraderie of a sort strikes up; one of the soldiers peers through the railings to commentate on the match for the girls who cannot see it and there is a feeling that, left together for long enough, these youths would find their own way through the absurdity of skewed dictates. The film even has a happy ending of sorts. Panahi was relying on Iran to win the match; they did, and the genuine celebrations in the streetprovided new possibilities for the film and its narrative.

Graeme Hobbs on 14th September 2006

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Film Description

The winner of the Silver Bear at the Berlin Film Festival, this`is, incredibly, Iranian gender politics played out as an absurdist farce. Panahi's film follows a group of soccer-mad girls who try and enter Iran's world cup qualifier with Bahrain but get caught on the way in. Their conversations with their guards are highly revealing about the unresolved questions around equality in Iran.

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DVD Extras

• Jafar Panahi Interview
• Jafar Panahi Biography.

Film Details

Cast

Sima Mobarak-Shahi, Shayesteh Irani, Ayda Sadeqi

Technical Details