Offside (2006/I)

Director:

Jafar Panahi

Writers:

Jafar Panahi (writer)
Shadmehr Rastin (writer)

Release Date:

26 May 2006 (Austria)

Genre:

Comedy | Drama | Sport

Tagline:

In Iran, All Women Are Banned From Men's Sporting Events

Plot:

Struggle of Women in a country that excludes them from entering the stadiums.

Plot Keywords:

Law | Iranian Soldier | Gender Disguise | Soccer | Teenage Girl

Awards:

4 wins & 3 nominations

Cast

Sima Mobarak-Shahi	...	First girl
Shayesteh Irani	...	Smoking girl
Ayda Sadeqi	...	Soccer girl
Golnaz Farmani	...	Girl with tchador
Mahnaz Zabihi	...	Female soldier
Nazanin Sediq-zadeh	...	Young girl
Melika Shafahi
Safdar Samandar	...	Soldier from Azerbaijan
Mohammad Kheir-abadi	...	Soldier from Mashad
Masoud Kheymeh-kabood	...	Soldier from Tehran
Mohammed-Reza Gharebaghi
Hadi Saeedi
Masoud Gheyas-vand
Ali Baradari
Ali Roshan

MPAA:

Rated PG for language throughout, and some thematic elements.

Runtime:

93 min | Germany:88 min (Berlin International Film Festival)

Country:

Iran

Language:

Persian

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

DTS | Dolby SR

Certification:

Sweden:7 | Switzerland:7 (canton of Vaud) | Switzerland:7 (canton of Geneva) | Argentina:Atp | USA:PG | Netherlands:12 | Australia:PG | Brazil:12 | South Korea:All | UK:PG | Germany:o.Al. | Hong Kong:I

Filming Locations:

Azadi Stadium, Tehran, Iran

Company:

Jafar Panahi Film Productions

Trivia:

Jafar Panahi asked each of the girls in the film to turn up with their own idea of how they would disguise themselves as a boy and what we see in the film was the girls' own attempts.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in "At the Movies: (2006-09-27)" (2006)

Movie is banned from Iran, Female attendance at male sporting events was banned in Iran. A movie about censorship, which is censored itself.

In Iran, females were not allowed to watch live soccer matches with male soccer players or crowds, until 2005. This is a fictional story about women who attempt to enter the stadium by dressing up as men, but are caught and 'imprisoned', as punishment, until the match is over. Much of the film was filmed during the actual soccer match which would determine whether Iran would go on to the World Cup.

A majority of this film contains interactions between female prisoners and male security guards whose jobs are to make sure they don't escape. Many of their conversations are commentaries on the state of Iran's society and they are often thoughtful and sometimes amusing. The actors give balanced and believable performances as each of their individual characters. It did seem to me that a few of the female characters were not delved into as deeply as others but overall, that did not affect my feelings about the movie as a whole. I liked how the male characters developed and changed over such a short period of time, but believably. Rather than having a serious overtone throughout, the movie has many funny moments and I liked seeing how people of the opposite sex clash as well as cope with one another. This is a nice movie from the point of view of women in Iran as well as an insightful look at the sexual discrimination that was instilled in the country as well as how women and men felt about it. It's great that women have more rights but hopefully one day they will have equal rights with men. This movie is not allowed to be shown in Iran, possibly because it makes their government look bad(gee, I wonder why?). I'm glad the movie was made in any case.