BINOCHE’S TEARS FOR JAILED PANAHI
French actress JULIETTE BINOCHE broke down in tears at the Cannes Film Fe stival on Tuesday (18May10) after a journalist informed her jailed filmma ker JAFAR PANAHI is on hunger strike.
The Oscar winner was speaking at a press conference to promote her upco ming picture Certified Copy at the annual movie event in France.
One reporter probed Binoche on her thoughts about Panahi - who has been in jail in Iran since March (10) - and revealed the movie mogul was emba rking on a hunger strike behind bars.
The star was overcome with emotion and unable to answer - prompting the film’s director Abbas Kiarostami to offer up his own response.
He told the reporter, "The fact that a filmmaker has been imprisoned is itself intolerable. If the Iranian government continues to refuse to rel ease Jafar, then we need explanations.
"Jafar Panahi was inclined to make his films under clandestine, illegal circumstances, but that’s not his responsibility alone. The responsibili ty is that of the authorities who prevent him from carrying out his profe ssion. When a filmmaker, an artist, is imprisoned it is art as a whole th at is attacked, and it is against this that we should react." Iranian Panahi is a vocal supporter of the country’s opposition leader Mirhossein Mousavi and was arrested following a police raid on his home i n Tehran in March. A string of Hollywood stars, including Robert De Niro, Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg, have signed a petition to free the moviemaker.
Movie & Entertainment News provided by World Entertainment News Network (www.wenn.com)
