3 Faces

Filmmaker Jafar Panahi and actress Behnaz Jafari travel to the rural northwest of Iran after receiving a plea for help from a girl whose family has forbidden her from studying to be an actress in Tehran. Amusing encounters abound, but they soon discover that the local hospitality is rivaled by the desire to protect age-old traditions.

“Charming Iranian cinema at its purest. Defiantly modern in its liberating message.” – Deborah Young, Hollywood Reporter

“Critic’s Pick! Elegant... immersive, pleasurably intelligent. Working with modest means and astonishing determination, [Panahi] makes movies that are at once acts of aesthetic will and of political resistance, as well as assertions of the existential sovereignty that here is etched in every last face.” – Manohla Dargis, The New York Times

“Unquestioned patriarchal tradition and desperate responses to its oppressive power are dramatized in the Iranian director Jafar Panahi’s sly and defiant metafictional road movie.” – Richard Brody, The New Yorker

“Full of intelligence and humility and a real respect for women and for female actors. Gentle, elusive, and redolent of this director’s mysterious Iranian zen.” – Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian

“A beautiful expression of artistic solidarity.” – Sam C. Mac, Slant Magazine

“An artful, surprising and thrillingly intelligent story about a few women trying to make a difference.” – Justin Chang, Los Angeles Times

“A gently provocative meditation on the role of creative souls in modern-day Iran.” – Dave Calhoun, Time Out

“A sly fictional commentary on life in Iran, hope, the country’s cinema legacy, and the continuity of history, disguised with folksy infusions of humor as a shaggy dog story.” – Barbara Scharres, RogerEbert.com

“A heartfelt statement of solidarity… such generosity of spirit is its own quietly fierce act of cinematic defiance.” – Jessica Kiang, Variety

“A hymn to the irrepressibility of screen storytelling.” – David Jenkins, Little White Lies