Did the news of No Bears deservingly bagging the Special Jury Prize at the 2022 Venice Film Festival slightly brighten the cell Jafar Panahi is locked up? I doubt it would mean a whole lot to one of the greatest filmmakers of all time, whose voice has been reaching us secretly ever since the Iranian government banned him from pursuing his art in 2010. A cake to hide “This Is Not A Movie” and the covert, lionhearted efforts that went into making and sharing No Bears with the world are simply not the kind of harrowing ordeals a director like Panahi should be going through. Yet, for someone whose self-reflectively bold and politically charged artistic endeavors are perceived as a critical threat by the government, Panahi’s proved himself to be a warrior of sorts by never allowing the regime to muffle his voice. What I’ve never felt dampens the experience...