From KCRW, I'm Kim Masters, and this is the business.

Iranian director Oscar Farhadi has won two Oscars and could be up for a third.

His new movie, A Hero, is on this year's shortlist for Best International Film.

Working in his home country, Farhadi makes compelling cinema despite a strict government censorship.

But there is a price.

You know, okay that I'd be used to make the movies that I wanted, but the movies that I

wanted to make, but I couldn't make.

Nobody talks about those movies.

So many times there are filmmakers who have like these ideas for movies or even a scene

or like just a character, but they have it in their hearts and in their mind,

but they know that they can't make it.

Farhadie explains how his filmmaking changes when he directs in another country and why he

still hopes to keep working primarily in a round. And he explains how his new film, a hero,

benefited from extra rehearsal time provided by the pandemic. But first,

a new year, a new banter. Stick around. It's the business from KCRW. I am joined by my

associate in banter. Matt Bellany. Hello, Matt. Hi there. So, Matt, we are coming off of the Jason

Kyler Victory Lab. He is very happy to tell many news outlets and Twitter about the great year that

HBO and HBO Max had. They had 73.8 million subscribers by years end that exceeds their forecasts for what that's worth and is good. It is a momentum that they are building. And Jason Kyler is like, we are in the club with Disney Plus and Netflix. I would say this is a difficult club right now. Streaming is proving to be very hard, but everybody wants to be in that club.

He says they are.

I guess the question would be, are the numbers all good news or do we have questions?

The quick answer is yes.

They are good.

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