JAFAR PANAHI - Director
Team Deakins
James Ellis Deakins
4.9 • 1.4K Ratings
🗓️ 27 May 2026
⏱️ 66 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
SEASON 2 - EPISODE 195 Jafar Panahi - Director
In this episode of the Team Deakins Podcast, we speak with director Jafar Panahi (IT WAS JUST AN ACCIDENT, NO BEARS, THE WHITE BALLOON). Growing up amidst poverty in Tehran, Jafar's love for cinema began in childhood and led him to enroll in the film program at university. Unsatisfied with his final student film, he destroyed it, but he reveals to us why and shares how his approach to directing every subsequent film changed for the better. Throughout the episode, we discuss how he actually makes his movies—both as a filmmaker and as a citizen contesting with censorship and an authoritarian government. We discuss the making of THE WHITE BALLOON and THE CIRCLE, and Jafar shares how he attempts to make the events in his films feel as if they really happened. We also learn how and why he brings in non-actors during the casting process, and he reveals how he and his crew try to avoid government raids. We also discuss the making of IT WAS JUST AN ACCIDENT, which features a return to a more traditional form of storytelling compared with Jafar's preceding films, and he reflects on his period of making films while being banned from filmmaking.
Translation conducted by Sheida Dayani.
This conversation was recorded on February 12, 2026.
If you enjoyed this episode, we recommend listening to our conversation with director Mohammad Rasoulof (Season 2, Episode 121).
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Recommended Viewing: THE WHITE BALLOON, THIS IS NOT A FILM, THE CIRCLE
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This episode is sponsored by Aputure
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi and welcome to Season 2 of the Team Deacons podcast, |
| 0:07.0 | a collection of informal conversations between Roger and James Deacons and a guest. |
| 0:13.0 | We never know where the conversation will take us, so listen in and see where it goes. |
| 0:21.9 | This episode is sponsored by Aperture and its new Storm XT-52, the industry's most |
| 0:29.5 | powerful LED point source light. Brighter than a 6K HMI and powered by Aperture's revolutionary |
| 0:36.8 | Blair light engine, the Storm XT-52 is both a tunable |
| 0:41.9 | white light and also the brightest ever adjustable color LED. Storm XT-52, unrivaled output, |
| 0:51.5 | only from aperture. |
| 0:55.3 | We'd like to thank translator Sheda Dianni for her work in making this conversation possible. |
| 1:04.4 | Today we're speaking with the director. Despite many obstacles, he's continued to create movies, |
| 1:10.6 | and we're grateful for that. |
| 1:12.8 | His credits include this year as it was just an accident, no bears, and three faces. |
| 1:19.0 | We're pleased to welcome Defar Panahi. |
| 1:23.2 | Defar, thank you for doing this. |
| 1:25.3 | Thank you. |
| 1:26.5 | Thank you, and you. Thanks. |
| 1:28.3 | We'd like to start with our regular question, which is, how did you get to where you are today? |
| 1:35.3 | Is this something that you always wanted to do as a child and just pursued it, or was it something you lucked into later? |
| 1:45.4 | Yes. Why film? |
| 1:59.7 | I grew up in a working class neighborhood and family in the south of Tehran. |
| 2:03.6 | This was where poverty was at its peak. |
| 2:11.6 | We didn't have any particular entertainment. |
... |
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