Jafar Panahi (winner of the Palme d'Or at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival) sets out to find a young woman with a golden voice that has been forbidden to sing by Iranian authorities.

“Social films are inspired by the director’s “sensations” and “experiences”. These sensations/experiences erode the soul of the filmmaker until they can be released into a movie. This is the reason why a filmmaker cannot be told to make or not make a movie.

Telling them not to film will never breach their resistance; neither will it close all the paths leading to making a movie. The opposite is equally true: if they are commissioned a movie, something resists inside them and prevents them from making it! Three years ago, when I was shooting Trois visages, I was asked to make a short-film for the Paris Opera.

I felt this resistance for two years. Don’t forget that since the Islamic Revolution, the opera as we know it has disappeared in Iran and that the oldest opera house of the country, located in Tabriz and built in the European style, had to close its doors and was destroyed after the Revolution, on a decision of the city’s imam who officially described it as a mediocre place promoting corruption...

This historical building was replaced by a mosque. Since the screening of Trois visages, I’ve received many messages from movie lovers, telling me that this film reminded them strangely of their own lives and stories. After that, I came up with the idea of this short-film and I thought that, maybe, it could match the Paris Opera’s project.”

Jafar Panahi, director
Winner of the 2025 Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival