The Criterion Collection

The March arrest and continued detainment of the great Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi—whose gripping, subversive films include The Circle, Crimson Gold, and Offside—have American directors and film writers rallying in support. Panahi, an outspoken backer of the country’s opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi during the highly contested and tumultuous 2009 elections, is being held as a political prisoner in Tehran’s Evin prison. Though the reasons for his arrest were originally not given, Iranian officials now allege that he was planning to make a film critical of the current regime. A petition calling for Panahi’s immediate release has been organized by a committee including Jamsheed Akrami, Godfrey Cheshire, Jem Cohen, Kent Jones, and Anthony Kaufman. Among those who’ve signed are Jim Jarmusch, Ang Lee, Richard Linklater, Michael Moore, Paul Schrader, Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, and Frederick Wiseman. See the full petition here.