{"id":267618,"date":"2026-04-14T17:37:07","date_gmt":"2026-04-14T17:37:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/267618\/"},"modified":"2026-04-14T17:37:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-14T17:37:07","slug":"jafar-panahi-thriller-returns-for-fresh-look-at-san-franciscos-balboa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/267618\/","title":{"rendered":"Jafar Panahi thriller returns for fresh look at San Francisco\u2019s Balboa"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Master Iranian filmmaker <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sfchronicle.com\/entertainment\/movies-tv\/article\/jafar-panahi-iran-sentence-21218845.php\" data-link=\"native\" class=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Jafar Panahi<\/a> has been making films in secret for decades, producing uncompromising work that criticizes his country\u2019s often brutal theocratic autocracy. He\u2019s even spent time in prison for it.<\/p>\n<p>Since \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.sfchronicle.com\/entertainment\/article\/it-was-just-an-accident-review-21093547.php\" data-link=\"native\" class=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">It Was Just an Accident<\/a>\u201d was first released in the Bay Area in October, so much has happened. The film, about a group of former political prisoners who kidnap a man whom they believe to be their former interrogator, became an Oscar contender; Panahi was sentenced in absentia to a year in prison; and Iran is now in a war with the United States and Israel.<\/p>\n<p>In his review for the Chronicle, contributor Bob Strauss writes, \u201cPanahi leaves us with the haunting suggestion that, whether innocent or evil, some people get put through too much to ever really be free.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>If ever a film that\u2019s less than a year old deserves a fresh look, this is it, and Richmond District\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sfchronicle.com\/totalsf\/article\/balboa-theater-san-francisco-22188186.php\" data-link=\"native\" class=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Balboa Theatre<\/a> is happy to oblige.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Master Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi has been making films in secret for decades, producing uncompromising work that criticizes&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":267619,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[329,7,35717,838,101,103,102,104,106,105],"class_list":{"0":"post-267618","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-francisco","8":"tag-arts-and-entertainment","9":"tag-california","10":"tag-datebook-pick","11":"tag-movies-and-tv","12":"tag-san-francisco","13":"tag-san-francisco-headlines","14":"tag-san-francisco-news","15":"tag-sf","16":"tag-sf-headlines","17":"tag-sf-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267618","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=267618"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267618\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/267619"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=267618"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=267618"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=267618"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}