In 1985, I had my first writing success in the Northwest Pacific Writers’ Conference Ferry Tales contest. They wanted a story as relates to ferries, the major source of transportation between Seattle and ports all over the San Juan de Fuca Straits, so I gave them one: “The Midnight Shuttle,” the story of a man who gets wicked heartburn and decides to get some fresh air on the last ferry ride out of Bremerton, Washington, only to discover he had died and was on Acheron, the mythic ferry to Hell. I was neck-deep in dark stuff at the time, and I wanted to share the dread. Writers and Christopher Nolan will understand.

That story took second place, and Heloise was slated to hand me my award at a dinner in Tacoma. That is, until I committed my one and only DUI in celebration of my victory and spent the weekend in county jail instead. Such are the ups and downs of life as a writer. In 1998 I decided to pursue a career in screenwriting. In 2004 my first script, Ludwig the Great, a Pythonesque twist on the life of King Ludwig II, garnered a number of prestigious award noms and an invite to a red carpet awards gala at the WGA Theater in Beverly Hills. I met stars like Andy Garcia, comedic genius Barry W. Blaustein (a personal hero and inspiration of mine), and did I say there was an open bar? What more could an aspiring alcoholic hack scribe ask for?

I must say I traveled to the event with both great excitement and great trepidation. I was concerned that politics would come up. Not being one to hold my tongue, and possessed of a very low bullshit threshold, would I say something that would sink my career before it even started? To my great relief, politics never came up once. To all the professional and aspiring writers, actors, directors and producers attending the event, it was all about The Dream and the Next Great Project. This was the real blue collar Hollywood, I told myself. I assumed from that point on that since both the MSM and some major stars were left-wing, that the squeaky left wheels got all the press grease and to forget about it.

So I did. And as always, I kept my politics separate from my work. All I wanted to do was tell great stories. In that respect, I am still that same ten-year-old punk kid looking for trouble, only on the page instead of the streets. In October 2008 I began work on what I thought would be my best and most marketable project yet: “One Night at the Oscars,” a Marx Brothers-like screwball romantic comedy that introduces comedic chaos and anarchy into the most structured and controlled event on earth. In the end, I meant Oscars to be a loving tribute to Hollywood and the Academy Awards. Or at least the golden ideal, of which you speak a whisper and it’s gone.

In all that time I blew off Hollywood politics. To quote comedy god Mel Brooks, “Without Jews, fags and gypsies there is no theater!” They tend not to be conservative in thought or deed. Nature of the beast. So what? I grew up a stone’s throw from Harvard U. What do you think I haven’t seen? I hold no animosity toward any person until I’m given reason to. Then, in late February 2009 I was given nuclear-level reason with the Team Oscar trip to Iran, and not five days after the four-hour infomercial Oscars opposing Prop 8. The backstory. I had always opposed the fascist Islamist extremist regime in Iran since it was first spawned from Hell in 1979, but began blogging on Iran in 2008 after some atrocious human rights horror stories made the news.

I became online friends at that time with activist Arsham Parsi of the Iranian Railroad for Queer Refugees, a Toronto-based NGO that helps LGBTs flee Iran or keep them from being deported back to certain death in Iran. I helped him with documents in English for his many refugee cases, and in every way I could. Why Team Oscar patronized a regime that conducts the most barbaric anti-gay pogrom in the world does not matter now. I could not be silent. I spoke my mind and my conscience is clear. If I never sell a script in Hollywood because of my many rants against such idiocy, so be it. I can live with never eating lunch in that town again. Hell, I have a Miss Canada and Miss Europe among my Iranian Facebook friends through my HR and anti-regime campaigning. I can live with that.

But IF I write a great script that is worthy of being made into a successful film which tells a great story millions will love and will make boffo box office, and I am denied work because of my strong opinions, who loses out in the end? Like I said, I care only for my co-writer and all the other creative film artists in Hollywood who do great work but stand to be shut out because of our political beliefs. What was McCarthyism again? And why is it okay for lefties and liberals to do it when Tailgunner Joe and Citizen Cohn are still reviled in Tinseltown for doing the same? I don’t ask for special treatment for my work. All I ask is the same shot every other screenwriter in town gets on the merits of their writing.

Hate me? Fine. Despise me to Hell? Great! See you there. Want to see me die screaming of rectal cancer? Come watch me in the oncology ward! Want to piss on my grave? I’ll buy the Colt 45 you can load up on, because that’s the kind of guy I am. But separate my work from my person. If I or anyone else writes a screenplay worthy of option, sale, production and release, does it really matter who writes it? Apply Mel Brooks’ famous axiom: “Great script! Thanks a lot, kid! Now get the fuck off the set!” I am not the judge of how worthy my scripts are. That is for industry professionals to decide.

But this is America, not Soviet Russia. The merits and talent of writers and other creative film artists should decide what work sells and what doesn’t, not petty tyrant political commissar gatekeepers who decide which writers work or don’t based not on the quality of their writing but their politics. Should Picasso’s Guernica never hang in a museum because he had bad things to say about the curators? Should Dylan Thomas’s poetry never be read because he may have slammed the poets of his day as morons? Should Hollywood iconoclast Harlan Ellison’s work never see the celluloid light of day because he tore the film industry new ones in his Glass Teat books? If all that happened, who would lose?

The simple answer is, all of us. I and my co-writer believe “One Night at the Oscars,” which we have just wrapped and registered with the WGA after three years and over a hundred hair-pulling rewrites, is a fresh, original, and crazy high concept, low budget, four quadrant kitchen sink screwball romantic comedy that uplifts even Academy members I have slammed in the past. Not to suck up or kiss ass to garner favor but because that’s how the story was always meant to be, and long before I went nuclear over Team Oscar’s Iran trip. See, I don’t ever let politics infect my work. Food for thought.

Should I find that that my work will never sell in Hollywood ever because of my blogging here and elsewhere, and no matter how good the storytelling and writing, so be it. I will retire to short story and novel writing, under a pen name if necessary if the publishing industry is as bad. But if any of those short story or novels achieve great success and film industry attention in the future, I’ll be damned if I ever sell the film rights to Hollywood while I live and breathe! That may sound bitter and petty, and would rob fans of being able to see a story they love on film, but what is it we were talking about here again?

Break a leg, all!

—–

That event is perhaps best remembered by Mr. Panahi’s empty jury chair and actress Juliette Binoche’s tearful plea. Mr. Panahi responded to Cannes’ supportive efforts to liberate him by smuggling out a thank you note from Evin. The regime’s response to that heinous offense was to sentence Mr. Panahi to an additional two months in Evin, followed by a Gestapo-like raid on his home to terrorize his family into media silence. Yet the international pressure seems to have worked then, as Mr. Panahi was freed from prison on May 25. Mr. Panahi’s liberty turned out to be short-lived. In December, Mr. Panahi was convicted of “propaganda against the system” by an Islamist kangaroo court in Tehran and sentenced to six years in prison.

Mr. Panahi was also banned from the film arts and leaving the country for 20 years. In effect, the regime issued Mr. Panahi an artistic death sentence. This time, however, Mr. Panahi had notable company. Director Mohammad Rasoulof, who had campaigned for Mr. Panahi’s freedom last year from outside Iran, was issued a matching sentence for his alleged crimes against the Islamist state. Both filmmakers are currently out on bail awaiting appeal. So once again, Cannes is neck-deep in campaigning for Mr. Panahi’s exoneration as well as Mr. Rasoulof’s now. The organization just issued a statement linked to a petition containing 17,000+ signatures that reads like a who’s who of the film world.

It remains to be seen what the Islamist regime’s response will be, but some key outside factors are now in play that weren’t last year that may harden the regime’s stance this time around. The Ahmadinejad regime’s response to the Arab Spring has been to let a crimson tide of blood at home, exemplified by its brutal repressions of the 25 Bahman protests on Valentine’s Day and an increase in the rolling executions of political prisoners. Recently the regime claimed the bloody crown of world’s most murderous state for 2010, yet the official numbers do not include de facto executions or the secret dumping of mutilated bodies of political prisoners in the Iranian desert. It’s even worse this year. Much worse.

Only time and events will determine the filmmakers’ fates, and events are moving at a very fast clip. Unlike past uprisings, the Green Revolution isn’t collapsing under the regime’s bloody iron boots as other failed rebellions have. It is also noteworthy, based on my interactions with hundreds of Iranians the past two years, that frustration with the regime is now boiling over and reaching a tipping point. It is becoming more and more apparent to freedom-loving Iranians that the only sure way to end the Islamist Groundhog Day of terror in Iran for Jafar Panahi, Mohammad Rasoulof, Mohammad Nourizad, Ahmad Zeidabadi, Nasrin Sotoudeh, Habibollah Latifi and all the other prisoners of conscience in Iran is real change that results in the lawful ruling Iran and the criminals in jail instead of the other way around, as it has been for thirty-two long hellish years under the murderous Khomeinists.

In truth, it is. The various Islamist regimes of Iran have been at total war with their Hollywood for a very long time now. In 2001 director Tahmineh Milani was sentenced to death for her film The Hidden Half, and well after approval for general release by the regime’s religious censors. Only international and heated domestic outrage spared Tahmineh’s life. Francis Ford Coppola and Martin Scorsese were howling back then too, as was the Academy. In February 2007, documentarian Mehrnoushe Solouki was thrown into the hell of Evin for the crime of stumbling across a regime mass grave during a shoot. Again, only international pressure freed her from her now-recurring nightmare.

SSDD in Iran’s film industry. Consider yourself lucky if you only get the McCarthy treatment. But the regime doesn’t stop its war on film and filmmakers at its borders. Last June, suspected Iranian operatives kidnapped exiled filmmaker and regime nemesis Daryush Shokof in Cologne, Germany for daring to screen his film Iran Zendan (Iran Prison), a brutal reenactment of the rape and torture of Green protesters inside an Iranian prison. Again, only international heat and intense pressure from the German government somehow made Mr. Shokof magically reappear on the banks of the Rhine in Cologne soaked, dazed and incoherent after twelve days missing.

It is much the same kind of war regime operatives now seem to be waging on the film Iranium in Canada. Originally scheduled to be screened at Canada’s National Archives, Iranium was canceled by the director due to Iranian embassy pressure and violently threatening anonymous phone calls (it should be noted here that Mr. Shokof received a number of similar dialed-in threats himself over Iran Zendan before his abduction). Canada’s Heritage Minister James Moore bravely ordered the screening back on, and despite all the threats and official Iranian protests. That scheduled screening of Iranium is now on the verge of causing a major diplomatic row between Canada and Iran.

Unfortunately for the regime, Canada has an inconvenient public policy called freedom of speech and someone with the balls to back it up in James Moore. The only question that remains for me is, just how far is the Islamist regime in Iran willing to go in a Western nation like Canada to suppress a film and/or filmmakers they very much don’t like? Time will tell. But if time has told us anything, it’s that the current plights of Jafar Panahi and Mohammad Rasoulof are only scratching the surface of Islamist Iran’s long sad history of persecuting even unto death its best and brightest, and of reaching beyond its borders to enforce Islamist whims or seek violent revenge for perceived offenses. Is that not the Islamist Way in a nutshell? Is it not the way of all totalitarians, given the tragic histories?

In closing, I would like to bring attention to yet another extremely brave Iranian filmmaker who is suffering the tortures of the damned in Iran: Mohammad Nourizad. A former regime filmmaker who turned after the Green Revolution, Mr. Nourizad was imprisoned and sentenced to 3-1/2 years in prison and fifty lashes for the crime of writing extremely heated letters to Ahmie and Khamie and three Mad Mullahs over the bloody post-election crackdowns. Late last year, he was taken to the hospital from prison following a severe beating that reportedly blurred his vision permanently. A filmmaker’s vision, I might add. He is now in the hospital again following a hunger strike. Please wish him well.

By the way, Mr. Nourizad still awaits his fifty lashes. As soon as he’s well enough, I reckon. The best we can do at the moment is continue to support the brave and longsuffering Iranian filmmakers (not to mention the Greens), and to take our own brave stands in defense of freedom in the face of real violent incivility by the Iranian regime and its agents in Canada. That is how we fight back: defiantly, and with no uncertain terms or equivocation. The Iranian regime does not dictate the terms of our freedom to us, or what films we can and cannot watch. I say let Iranium flow to the outer boundaries of cyberspace. Cheerfully enough, it will on February 8th. The regime would rather we not watch it, which is reason enough to. Screw ‘em! It’s not like they haven’t screened a few unpleasant films in their day.

In For Jafar, I will similarly attempt to go beyond The Nightmares Before Christmas and all that entails for a time. Rather I will share with you what few snippets I have I gleaned of Jafar Panahi’s life as a living human being and not a tortured innocent film poet given an artistic death sentence, what Jafar himself called wandering in the larger jail. A most poetic analogy as you might expect from the eloquent filmmaker, and dead on point. If you’re a passionate artist denied your art in toto, is that really any better than a summary execution?

Filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof 

Imagine Picasso robbed of his paints, brushes, canvass and stone. What is left of the man? Of course, the two filmmakers will first have to survive six years in Islamist Iran’s Dantean prison system to greatly improve their life status to merely being banned from their art for life. Always a dicey proposition in Islamist Iran. Dark questions abound. What if Jafar goes on a hunger strike again? The last one nearly killed him. His health was already failing rapidly back then from the regime’s Winston Smith treatment, which has failed to break him as it has many innocent Iranians brutalized in the shadows of hells like Evin.

But many others in the film world, the media and the blogosphere will be discussing at length the political and social ramifications of Mr. Panahi’s intolerable situation, or making strong political statements in support of Mr. Panahi and demanding his immediate and unconditional release. Oscar winners Martin Scorsese and DGA President Taylor Hackford already have, God bless ‘em this Christmas Season. The Europeans and Brazilians are getting restless too, never mind the Iranians.

But you could know all that already. Here’s what you may not know. First, a most relevant Fun Film Fact I have yet to really see mentioned anywhere of late: Jafar Panahi and Mohammad Rasoulof are not only co-prisoners; like many of their star film industry counterparts in Hollywood they’re co-producers. The film Mohammad Rasoulof directed and Jafar Panahi edited last year, White Meadows, is an eerie and mystical allegory with breathtaking cinematography.

White Meadows was filmed on an otherworldly salt island in Iran’s Lake Urmia, adding even deeper symbolism to the mysterious man who came to the island by boat to collect people’s salt-filled tears in jars as part of a bizarre societal ritual. White Meadows wowed the international film festival circuit last May during its run. Ironically, the world’s top filmmakers were howling back then for Mr. Panahi’s release from unjust captivity in Evin, symbolized by the empty chair at Cannes and actress Juliette Bionoche’s tearful plea.

Only now fellow filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof is also caught up in the Islamist regime’s merciless machinery of injustice. Adds a twist, doesn’t it? Knowing all that, one of my first thoughts upon the news of this twin crime against art, humanity and civilization itself was of a Satanic version of The Producers, only this ain’t no movie and it really sucks. I first received the stunning news early Monday from an Iranian friend on Facebook. From there I went straight to the main Jafar Panahi Facebook page, which speaks for the man.

Jafar Panahi

The news was of course posted all over its wall, as were calls for petitions and eloquent pleas for Jafar’s pardon and release. I expected to see all that. The wall was a gathering place, chat room and bulletin board for many of his worldwide supporters during his last unjust imprisonment, then in a crypt-like cell in Evin’s notorious Ward 209. What I didn’t expect to see was a YouTube video collage of master pantomime Marcel Marceau as the most recent official post. What a brilliant statement!

I interpreted it as, “No matter what you do to artists, their art survives.” It may not have been Mr. Panahi who posted it, but I can see him supporting the idea in full: fight violence with art. Not a new concept. Also, during my reporting and campaigning earlier this year at the Jafar Panahi and Free Jafar Panahi pages, I came into contact with a number of great Iranians both within and without Iran, including a relation of Mr. Panahi’s who turned out to be a total metalhead. It all started with Korn’s Here To Stay and Disturbed’s The Game live, and it only went downhill from there. It was an unexpected discovery and connection.

I realize this isn’t really very much of an insight into Mr. Panahi’s life as a man. Many others know him far better as a filmmaker, family man and kindred spirit than I. I’m just giving you what I got. The last insight I will provide you on Mr. Panahi for now, as well as for Mr. Rasoulof, is that the two filmmakers have shown balls of steel in traveling to film festivals overseas, brandishing Green and demanding Iran be free. They knew they would have to reckon with whatever the Little Hitler and the Mad Mullahs had in store for them.

They willingly returned to the belly of the beast knowing full well how greatly they had angered it, and all evidence to date indicates they will not be silenced but for death itself. To paraphrase George C. Scott in Patton, “Men that eloquent have to be saved.” I will certainly do all I can to help free Mr. Panahi yet again. On that front, I am very encouraged by the tsunami of international outcries calling for the filmmakers’ freedom. As to what the future holds, who knows? Given Islamist Iran is involved, I tend to drift toward worst case scenarios.

But the world’s eyes are on Iran and the two renowned filmmakers now, and they will not turn away. On this News Year’s Eve, I hold on to the hope that the two men will be released in fairly short order as a result of intense domestic and international pressure, the one political force the regime seems to pay attention to at all. That is my wish. I also wish the best for the filmmakers’ families in this trying time, as well as for all Iranians and their families suffering as a result of regime cruelty. I also hope that some day, from either within or without Iran, somehow the lights are finally turned off on this human rights horrorshow forever. It has been running for far too long. 

In closing, here’s to wishing for a Happy New Year filled with heartwarming stories from a newly free and democratic Iran, and of Jafar Panahi, Mohammad Rasoulof and all the other oppressed Iranian filmmakers cranking out their next celluloid gems. We can dream, can’t we? In fact, just think of how great Iran could be if the Mad Mullahs only had the power to bless American sports cars. Now there’s a Christmas Wish!

On Monday afternoon I received word from an Iranian friend of mine on Facebook regarding the harsh prison sentences recently meted out by an Islamist People’s Court in Iran to renowned international filmmakers Jafar Panahi and Mohammad Rasoulof. The news is now breaking worldwide and will no doubt cause a stir everywhere, from Hollywood and ABC to Cannes and the streets of Iran. In brief, the two nationally revered auteurs were just sentenced to six years in prison each for the crime of “participating in a group agitating propaganda against the system.” How Nazi-like does that sound?

The famed directors were also barred from filmmaking for twenty years. Obtaining visas to leave Iran in the future will no doubt be just as severely problematic, as is nearly ever other facet of life in Iran today under the bloody iron boots of the present Shiite Islamist extremist regime terrorizing the nation. It’s called the Ahmie and Khamie Show. How you likin’ it now? I can’t say how I feel about it. I can show you. But War Is Not The Answer, at least not today. That’s just my Alpha Male talking. Against my better judgment, let’s Give Peace a Chance with that foul inhuman regime. Just one more time.

Let’s give them a chance to undo their most serious wrongs to Mr. Panahi, Mr. Rasoulof, the Iranian people, the film world and the rest of civilization at large. The Free Jafar Panahi page is still up on Facebook from the last time Mr. Panahi was unjustly imprisoned, as is the main Jafar Panahi page. Petitions should be peppering those walls in very short order. The popular Cineuropa will also no doubt be on the petition job soon, as they were the last time around. Nothing yet on Mr. Rasoulof. Will update. Feel free to send the Academy a line on behalf of the two filmmakers as well, and please be courteous. This is business.

I expect to be addressing this intolerable situation in-depth in short order, as will be most every other media and trade rag outlet on the planet as word of this cruel abomination of justice spreads. This regime never fails to disappoint, does it? This story is merely the latest tragic episode in an Islamist Iranian Groundhog Day nightmare that only gets worse each time around. And that’s not even counting all the regime-sanctioned white torture, forced confessions, rapes, slaughter and hostage Americans. I’m sick to death of it all!

How’s this for a solution? We free all the innocent in Iran and imprison all the guilty for a change! Let the best of true human justice take its course. But I will try peace today. It is the choice of most Iranians I know, as well as the top Green leaders within and without Iran. I fully respect their wishes. It’s their country after all. I also believe that peace is an approach all of us in the film world and elsewhere can support in full measure regardless of our personal politics.

In the meantime, please make your voices heard where and when you can.

—–

At times, For Neda also induces in the viewer an unnerving sense of paranoia. Throughout much of the film, the regime is the evil villain unseen on the screen but whose ominous presence is most keenly felt. The rather ordinary but highly illicit home interview sessions in Iran with Neda’s family and others engender a dark foreboding to the point you almost expect regime jackboots to bust down the doors at any moment. The rest of For Neda is also fraught with many palpable dangers that make the fictional James Bond’s seem trite by comparison. In For Neda, we know that the consequences of regime discovery and reprisal are as perilous, real and horrifying as it gets.

For those reasons and many others, Neda’s family refused to talk to the media for the longest time. After Neda’s death last June 20, the regime forcibly moved the family to prevent their home in Tehran from becoming a Green rallying point (which it had in fact become), then thoroughly silenced them. Yet after much coaxing online, Neda’s family finally (and fearlessly) agreed to a live interview in their home to tell Neda’s life story. The man chosen to travel to Iran to secretly interview Neda’s family and capture it all on video for HBO was Saeed Kamali Dehghan, a courageous 24-year-old Iranian expatriate and editorial contributor to the UK Guardian.

What Mr. Dehghan lacked in formal journalism experience he would make up for with great human insight, derring-do and balls of titanium. He would need all of those qualities for this trip. The slightest slip-up, careless act or suspicion-inducing look could lead him straight to Evin prison and all that entails. Fortunately, Mr. Dehghan succeeded in entering Iran undetected and completing his lonely and dangerous mission. For that, we all owe him an enormous debt of gratitude. The video he smuggled from the homes and hearts of Neda’s mother, father, sister and brother is extraordinarily captivating and poignant. It reveals to us, layer by layer, the story of whom Neda Soltan was as a living person and kindred human spirit.

Perhaps the most amazing aspect of Neda’s life, as revealed in For Neda, was how closely it mirrored those of most ordinary young American women. Rebellious at a very young age, Neda refused to wear the chadar in elementary school, which is required of all female students in the Islamic Republic. Even more amazingly, l’enfant terrible Neda won her fight. She would do battle with the chadar and other female clothing restrictions throughout her all-too-short life, one of many rebellions Neda would conduct against the repressive and misogynist Islamist legal codes in Iran.

Neda Soltan’s subversion of thought also extended to literature. From Wuthering Heights to The Last Temptation of Christ, Neda’s widely varying and mostly illegal collection of books reveals a most curious and searching young mind that wanted to know and experience all the best that humanity had to offer, most of which was and is forbidden in the Islamic Republic. Perhaps the most poignant moment of all in For Neda is when her mother recalls the day Neda was fatally shot by a basiji sniper in the streets of Tehran. In phone call after phone call, Neda ignored her mother’s pleadings to come home. During her last call prior to her death, Neda had told her mother how dangerous the streets were becoming and promised that she would at last return home.

The rest is now history in a revolution that continues to unfold before our eyes. Its ending is still unwritten, but is eyed by the Greens and the diaspora with great hopes for a free and democratic Iran. Were such a revolution of freedom to succeed, it would not only transform Iran itself beyond measure but the world at large, given the Islamic Republic’s larger-than-life place in it today. In summation, For Neda is one of the most compelling, moving and gut-wrenching documentaries I have ever seen. The film succeeds wildly in projecting the entire scope of the Green cause through one of its earliest, youngest and most defiant revolutionaries, and in the most human and personal of terms.

Here is perhaps the ultimate insight into Neda’s persona as revealed in the film. On Election Night last year, Neda smelled a rat and refused to cast a vote when she found only Ahmadinejad observers were allowed at the polls. Yet despite the fact Neda did not vote herself, the news that the election was most likely fraudulent compelled her back out onto the streets to speak up for family and friends whose votes had been stolen. That courageous, selfless and defiant act, one which would ultimately cost Neda her life, captures the essence of Neda’s spirit, the spirit of the HBO documentary that bears her name, and the spirit of the Green Revolution itself.

I also informed all parties involved that I would do the same for any of them under similar brutal and inhuman circumstances. Whatever it took, be it sweetheart pleas or promises of a nuclear PR war. I have since dropped the latter approach, as I have been informed by Iranians also campaigning for Mr. Panahi’s release that it was not helpful to his cause. So on Mr. Panahi’s behalf, I have traded in my sword for a plowshare for the duration. Not a problem. I’m not a total ideologue. Just mostly.

This past three weeks have also brought many valuable learning experiences as well. I have since found that Facebook, which I have avoided like the Plague because I have enough on my geek plate already, is an incredibly valuable social networking tool that reaches even into the heart of Iran itself. I have made many new friends behind the Islamist Curtain, among them a Panahi family member, by posting any good news I could find on the Jafar Panahi and Free Jafar Panahi Facebook pages.

You have no idea how badly ordinary Iranians are starved for good news from the outside world today, people. They long for it like a parched man in the desert longs for water. So I scoured the Internet for every Jafar Panahi rally, every screening of Mr. Panahi’s award-winning films in solidarity with the filmmaker, demands for his release by the French and German foreign ministers, and the big news of ten days ago: that Cannes was dedicating an empty jury chair in Mr. Panahi’s honor.

That empty chair is sure to loom larger as Cannes approaches, especially in light of the recent joint statement by many of America’s leading filmmakers calling for the release of Mr. Panahi from Evin prison. It was a bold and comprehensive PR salvo to the Islamist regime in Iran by Hollywood’s top filmmakers, dare I say far bolder than Comedy Central’s recent caving to jihadi wannabes living in their mothers’ basements in New York City. Full credit where credit is due. And I cannot tell you how excited ordinary Iranians were at that surprising news. Orgasmic would not be an understatement.

Speaking of credit, the Free Jafar Panahi campaign owes a great debt of gratitude not only to the many filmmakers who spoke in unison on Mr. Panahi’s behalf last Friday, but most particularly to entertainment writer Anthony Kaufman, who has been working tirelessly on Mr. Panahi’s behalf ever since his arrest on March 1. Mr. Kaufman was also a driving force on the NYC petition committee. He deserves our deepest gratitude for his journeyman work in Mr. Panahi’s cause. Please thank him at his Village Voice contact page. Mr. Kaufman has definitely earned the Egon Snickers bar on this one!

For the record, the campaign to free Jafar Panahi is not over. In point of fact, the Hollywood petition may only be the end of the beginning. Mr. Panahi is still being given the Winston Smith treatment in Evin prison, and the Ahmadinejad regime shows no inclination to release him right away. Just the opposite, in fact. As Mr. Kaufman himself just reported, the state Tabnak news agency responded with “West Meddles in Panahi Affair Again, This Time Using the Prestige of the Hollywood Greats.” The state-run Kayhan website went even further, calling the Hollywood petitioners “mofsed fel-arz” which translates to “moral corruption that threatens the social order,” a most severe crime in Iran.

But the international tide of support for Mr. Panahi is steadily rising. Despite steadfast resistance,  mounting international pressure for Mr. Panahi’s release may yet have a profound effect on the regime. It is sure to be raised even higher with that upcoming empty jury chair looming ever larger at Cannes with each passing day. Even in today’s chaotic Iran, the regime will release Mr. Panahi if the PR heat becomes too great as it did for Roxana Saberi. The regime can ill afford to lose allies like France and Germany right now, and Mr. Panahi is fast becoming a diplomatic sticking point for both.

A note of bitter deja vu. Last week, as I drafted my latest oped on Mr. Panahi at Digital Journal, it occurred to me that a year ago today I was immersed in the same kind of relentless campaign for Roxana Saberi’s release from Evin prison, both here at BH and at the Digital Journal news blog. It was in fact Team Oscar’s Iran trip that drove me for the first time in my ten years as a screenwriter to openly attack and criticize Hollywood and the Academy over their incredible ignorance of the Islamist regime in Iran, especially with regard to the political persecution of filmmakers there. But Hollywood has finally spoken up on Iran, and in many ways my mission here at Big Hollywood is now complete.

Perhaps now that they all know the dire situation with Mr. Panahi, they’ll start taking a closer look at what’s going on there with other persecuted Iranian filmmakers like Mohammad Nourizad, never mind the thousands of innocents who suffer endlessly in the shadows outside of the public eye. For the first time in all this time, I feel like there’s hope yet. Statements such as the one last Friday carry far more weight than the sum of their parts. Hollywood voices do get a lot of press and attention, and that is a very good thing in this situation. I hope they continue to speak out as they have, which I am sure will accelerate in full measure at Cannes. I’ll be watching. But I see a lot of very good things upcoming that could lead to Jafar Panahi’s freedom. Here’s hoping for the best: a free Jafar Panahi!

But before I get into the stomach-churning details of the Hollywood Left’s shattered moral compass vis-a-vis directors Polanski and Panahi and other Iranian film artists, I would like to take a moment to honor more of the true heroes who have spoken out loudly on Mr. Panahi’s behalf and signed petitions for his release. The National Society of Film Critics. The Boston, L. A. and  Toronto Film Critics Associations. Arin Paul of the New York Times. Filmmaker Ken Loach. Rutger Wolfson, director of the Rotterdam Film Festival. German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle. Human Rights Watch. French Minister of Culture Frederic Mitterand. Iranhumanrights.org. The list really is long.

Of course, noticeably absent from those petitioning and publicly calling for the release of Mr. Panahi from his unjust tomb-like captivity in Tehran are all of the prominent Hollywood A-List petitioners for Polanski. So Mr. Polanski’s arrest for child rape is worthy of international pressure and outrage, but famed director Jafar Panahi being tossed into a crypt in Tehran on “unspecified charges” is not? Welcome to Lefty Hollywood. And it only gets worse. The most tragic case of Jafar Panahi is yet one more sorry, perplexing and infuriating chapter in leftist Hollywood’s incredible blind side to any human rights violations in Iran, never mind only those perpetrated against Iranian filmmakers today.

Gay rights zero Sean Penn’s PR jaunt for the Mad Mullahs in Tehran in 2005, praising the Islamists even as then president-elect Mahmoud “No Gays in Iran” Ahmadinejad was jacking up the regime’s barbaric anti-gay pogrom. The sordid and embarrassing Team Oscar trip to Iran in March 2009, in which actress Annette Bening praised the regime’s women’s rights record even as Roxana Saberi rotted in Evin prison across town, and as Iranian-American filmmaker Esha Momeni awaited an Islamist kangaroo court for the crime of filming a women’s rights documentary. She awaits trial still.

The Academy’s posting of the self-aggrandizing Road to Isfahan promo last summer, with no mention that many of the Iranian filmmakers featured in it had been blacklisted by the regime. In essence, the Academy profited from their McCarthyite misery. AMPAS knew, in the same way that you now know. I told them. The Academy’s emailed response? They don’t get into politics, don’t you know. Same with the AMPAS Iran film seminar in L.A. last October. Two blacklisted Iranian film artists, including renowned actress Fatemeh Motamed-Aria, were barred from leaving Iran to attend.

The show went on, the blacklisted whitewashed from the Academy’s program in Orwellian fashion. Also noticeably absent from Hollywood’s list of cause celebres’ is renowned Iranian director and President of the Asian Film Academy Mohsen Makhmalbaf, who now serves as official spokesman for Mir Hussein Mousavi and the Greens outside Iran. Who in Hollywood has invited Mr. Makhmalbaf to speak on the plight of the Greens and Iranian film artists? None I can find. How can you explain any of this to where it makes any sense at all? Why not any peep out of Hollywood on Iran at all?

Theo Van Gogh

Is it the Islamist Fear Factor? Are they just too enamored of blood-drenched dictators like Chavez, Castro and Ahmadinejad that they can’t find it within themselves to say a bad word about them? Or is it just plain endemic Hollywood racism? Polanski is white, after all. Panahi and most Iranians are not. I’d like to believe that, but I don’t really. I just believe leftist Hollywood is so morally corrupt that child rape and cop killing are morally defensible, yet dissent in a fascist dictatorship is not. Perhaps if Mr. Panahi had drugged and raped a tween, he would be getting the rabid and unqualified support of the lefty Hollywood establishment today. How I only wish to God that were a sick joke.

For those of you who do still have some shred of morality and human decency left in your souls (unlike some people), here are two petitions for the release of entombed director Jafar Panahi. One is at Facebook, the other at Petitions Online. Thank you, on behalf of Mr. Panahi and his family. And thanks to the many worldwide voices who have NOT remained silent in the face of this abomination of justice for a cutting-edge director, whose only crime is being cutting-edge in a fascist dictatorship where such innovation is rewarded with the death of a thousand cuts. I can think of many lefty Hollywood film types more deserving of that fate than the brave Jafar Panahi.

Here’s an idea. Why don’t we petition the Iranian government and work out a trade? They send us Jafar Panahi and all their blacklisted film artists, and we send them all the signatories to Roman Polanski’s petition. Let’s Make a Deal! And no, I’m not joking. I would make that trade in a heartbeat. I am at my wit’s end with Lefty Hollywood, people. For over a year now I have been pressing the case of Iranian film artists, and they were all just as dead silent on the subject then as they are toward Jafar Panahi and other persecuted filmmakers in Iran today, some of whom they once called friend.

I have even tried to shame them into action. But how do you shame the shameless? How do you explain morality to moral reprobates who equivocate the drugging and anal rape of a child? Who believe critics of dictator Hugo Chavez should be thrown in jail? Who believe that we were as racist and terrorist as the genocidal Imperial Japanese in the Pacific War? Who believe America is evil and everything it stands for sucks, even as they lead lives of freedom and luxury not possible anywhere else on earth? What happened to the Hollywood heroes of old who made fun of fascist dictators, often at risk to their own lives, instead of jaunting off to run PR campaigns for them?

Maybe it’s time for a new and revolutionary tack, people. Maybe it’s time to found a new Hollywood built on the principles of the old. The Hollywood in which the brave Victor Laszlo was a hero, not the murderous Che Guevara. In which America’s greatness and heroism was praised, not vilified. In which the American people were enlightened with great film stories that made them proud to be Americans, not browbeat with leftist anti-American propaganda. There is a great hunger in America for that brand of storytelling in film. A market of hundreds of millions just waiting to be tapped.

A huge undertaking, no doubt. But nowhere near the task faced by our Founding Fathers, and look at the miracles that ragtag band of rebels wrought. We Americans can do anything we put our minds to. But that is a piece for another time. For now, forget those useless leftist Hollywood idiots. We can deal with them later. Right now, Jafar Panahi and his family need each of us to speak out on his behalf. His life is hanging in the balance. Please sign the petitions at Facebook and Petitions Online linked above. As I have said in Part One, concerted voices raised in outrage have saved lives in Iran before, and can do so again. To save one life is to save the world entire. That is all that matters now. Hollywood lefties can go fuck themselves. History and their silence will damn them for all time.

Jafar Panahi

“Every possible way has been used for breaking his spirit. He is deprived of his basic and legal rights. Can all of this be called anything but torture? Does a regime have the right to treat one of its artistic elite so shamefully and inhumanely on the basis of a film that has not yet been made?”  -  Taherah Saeedi, wife of renowned Iranian New Wave filmmaker Jafar Panahi, on her husband’s arrest and imprisonment in Tehran.

On September 27, 2009, famed Hollywood film director Roman Polanski was arrested on arrival at Zurich Airport by Swiss authorities on a 31-year-old L.A. warrant for the 1977 drugging and raping of 13-year-old Samantha Geimer, now 45. A huge swath of the liberal leftist Hollywood establishment wasted no time in leaping into action over the Swiss authorities’ dismaying breach of social justice and inhuman treatment vis-a-vis director/child rapist Polanski. Over 100 well-known filmmakers and A-list celebrities signed a petition of outrage demanding Mr. Polanski’s immediate release.

Now, many of we mere mortals may not agree with the leftist Hollywood establishment’s unqualified support of Mr. Polanski given his crimes. Most Americans, and even most French, decidedly did not. The New York Times called the French divided on the issue, as they only supported Mr. Polanski’s extradition by a 70% margin. Larger point being, it is comforting to know that even for admitted child rapists, the leftist Hollywood establishment will always be there to raise a staunch defense of their film industry paisans in the face of rank injustice and gross violations of their basic human rights.

You might think that anyway. Perhaps that’s even what they want you to think. But then there’s the story of Jafar Panahi, the cutting-edge Iranian New Wave film director who has consistently pushed the envelope of Iranian film, all in the face of perhaps the worst censorship on earth as dictated by the Islamist regime’s Ministry of Islamic Culture and Guidance. And outside of child rape, directors Panahi and Polanski have a lot in common. Both have won the Golden Lion at Venice and the Silver Bear in Berlin, and have been showered with many other international awards and accolades for their cutting-edge films. And both have presided over prestigious international film festival juries.

Yet somehow that keen leftist Hollywood sense of moral outrage regarding the mistreatment of renowned film directors is curiously nonexistent with respect to the nightmarish situation now being endured by director Panahi and his family. The contrast is actually quite stark. As Polanski awaits a decision on his extradition from the luxury of house arrest at his ski chalet in Gstaad (where he was also allowed to wrap post-production on his latest film, The Ghost Writer), his Hollywood friends and admirers like Ewan MacGregor continue to speak out on his behalf, believing the drugging and anal rape of tween Samantha Geimer a bygone best forgotten.

Meanwhile, the 49-year-old Jafar Panahi is imprisoned in Tehran in what can only be called a crypt as the Islamist authorities attempt to break his spirit. Though they may not succeed on that front (and have not to date), they may yet break his body. His health has deteriorated in prison, and he is at great risk of a heart attack and premature death. His crime? Supporting the Green Revolution and planning a film on it. Mr. Panahi was first arrested last July as he and others laid flowers at the graves of Neda Soltan and other victims of the regime’s brutal post-election crackdown. He was released a few hours later, but continued to speak out on behalf of Mousavi and the Greens at great risk to himself. Like a dark Shakespearean tragedy, the outcome was inevitable.

On March 2, 2010, Iranian security forces conducted a sweep of Mr. Panahi’s residence in Tehran, arresting Jafar, his wife, his daughter and fifteen dinner guests present at the time. They also ransacked his home and seized many personal belongings.  His wife and family went a month not knowing Jafar’s location or condition. Finally Jafar’s wife, Taherah Saeedi, was allowed to visit him in solitary confinement, where she found Jafar pale and weak. An attending physician told her Jafar had twice experienced severe chest spasms and was at risk of a major heart attack. That is the situation Mr. Panahi and his family endure today. A tragic outcome is all but a foregone conclusion.

Fortunately, many prominent voices in film around the world are speaking out loudly on Mr. Panahi’s behalf, even a few in Hollywood. Veteran actor Brian Cox, to his great credit, has not only signed onto a petition demanding Mr. Panahi’s release, he even added an eloquent statement and the prestige of his C.B.E on Mr. Panahi’s behalf. American filmmakers William Farley, Rob Nilsson, Tristam Powell, film critic Jonathan Rosenbaum and countless others from around the world have also signed on, as well as the Sarajevo Film Festival, the European Film Academy, Berlinale, APSA, NetPac and many others. Even fifty Iranian filmmakers have stuck their own necks out in protest. In fact, outside of the United States, unqualified support for Mr. Panahi’s release is near-universal.

And then there’s Hollywood. So where are all the big Tinseltown A-list names who couldn’t rush to Roman Polanski’s defense and sign a petition demanding his release fast enough? The Woody Allens? The Michael Manns? The Taylor Hackfords? The Martin Scorseses? Where is Whoopi Goldberg arguing on The View that laying flowers at the grave of Neda Soltan wasn’t “crime-crime“? Where is the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences? Or even one American film festival?

It’s not like they don’t know. Variety and WSJ entertainment writer Anthony Kaufman blitzed the industry in late March through emails, Twitter and Facebook, and has received only one response and petition signature to date, from writer-producer James Schamus. So here we are, over a month into renowned director Jafar Panahi’s interment in a crypt in Evin prison without charge, and with absolutely no support from the same A-listers who had a petition out on Polanski within 24 hours of his arrest. Mr. Kaufman wishes the industry were less apathetic, but I have a different word in mind.

Disgusting! And if you’re not as disgusted over this pathetic and inexcusable situation as I am yet, it gets a lot worse in Part Two. Keep a barf bag handy. You’re going to need it. In the meantime, please sign on to the petitions for Jafar Panahi’s release at Facebook and Petitions Online. It was concerted voices raised in outrage that freed Tahmineh Milani, Mehrnoushe Solouki and Roxana Saberi. They may yet again. Feel free to give AMPAS a heads up as well. They’ve done this before. And they have a lot to redeem themselves for regarding Iranian film artists. More on that in Part Two.

I don’t know about you, but I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take them anymore. Prime example. Sean Penn calling for the arrest of anyone who tags dictator Hugo Chavez as a dictator. That must now include the mass arrest of the entire leadership of the OAS, which just slammed Pennhead’s hero El Chavista on his horrific human rights record. I will say it: that statement is as un-American as it gets, and is dictatorial in itself. Those are fighting words, IMHO. Tell me where I’m wrong.

Then we had Tom Hanks effectively saying that the Japanese and Americans wanted to destroy each other only because they were different breeds of racists. That intellectually vacuous statement not only slanders America’s most honorable record in the war against a genocidal Imperial Japan, it slanders the sacred memory of every US service member who fought and died in that conflict. As a Navy veteran myself, and the son of an Army veteran of Normandy Beach on D-Day? Fighting words.

And now, actress Megan Mullally believes that Jay Leno’s attempts to attract red state viewers is “insane.” Is it? Gee, I thought Hollywood studios, networks and creative film artists sought the widest audiences possible. Aren’t we all Americans here? I guess not, huh? How do all you red staters feel being effectively declared insane by the esteemed Dr. Mullally? Fighting words? I believe it is time they are met head on and challenged. My answer? Impact statements. By that I mean Americans making a punitive statement to said Tinseltown offenders to let them know just how numerous and offended we are. We accomplish that through temporary one-time boycotts of the offenders’ projects.

Here is The Plan. It is too late to make an impact statement on the premiere of the Hanks/Spielberg HBO series The Pacific. But it is not too late to make a statement on Episode Two next Sunday night. Here is how we let Mr. Hanks know of our rank offense at his fighting words re the Pacific War. This Sunday, don’t watch it. For one night. Don’t even TiVo it. Then next week, everybody tune it in whether you were going to watch it or not. The ratings dips and jumps will send a very clear message. If it helps, think of it as being The Joker for a Day. Be an Agent of Chaos in the ratings! That work for ya?

I consider that a very balanced yet powerful response. As to Mr. Penn, he has four upcoming film projects, none of which has an official release date. One is Fair Game, the story of Joseph Wilson and the Valerie Plame “scandal.” No impact statement necessary there. I’ll bet five-to-one that film is DOA at the box office. Bush-bashing is so yesterday. No, the only juicy prospect in Mr. Penn’s future is the Farrelly Brothers’ reboot of The Three Stooges. I say totally avoid the film on its release weekend. Give him a taste of what rectal cancer at the box office feels like. Make him scream.

As to Ms. Mullally, there doesn’t seem to be much of anything of hers at IMDB that won’t collapse financially or ratings-wise of its own accord. You can beat a dead horse, but what’s the point? Perhaps that’s why she said what she did. You know. Get in good with Sean Penn and Tom Hanks. I’ll keep an eye on Ms. Mullally and any impact statement-worthy projects she may get attached to.

I never forget fighting words. Ever. And I will do my part. I fully intend to contact every major US veterans’ organization on the matter of The Pacific, and will recommend they make an impact statement of their own this coming Sunday. Will you do your part? Is missing one TV show or opening weekend at the box office too much to ask in response to fighting words by those creative film artists most concerned with the project’s financial and viewership success?

Lastly, a blackly comic punchline. A spec script I have been laboring on for eighteen months, my fourth, is finally wrapping this week and going to market after rewrites based on coverage. That’s why I’ve been mostly MIA as of late. I know. Alex Perez, aka Hollywood Scab Writer, probably has a better shot at the Biz than I will after this. But I’m a writer. I write. Telling me to stop writing is like telling a charter NAMBLA Member in Good Standing to lay off the young boys. It ain’t happening.

I may have to move on to another field of writing in the end, but at least I take a clear conscience with me. I also take with me a huge, loving and most supportive family, lots of great  friends, and a lot of most promising young people I have befriended who adore me as I do them. I even have today’s Oscar Schindler for LGBTs and some real gay advocates on my side via my reporting on the LGBT human rights horrorshows in Iran and Iraq. Not like the professional fakes at HRC. Larger point being, I am an Army of One. I may never get rich in Hollywood, but I will never be poor with all I have, either. In point of fact I am already rich, and there is nothing Lefty Hollywood can do to hurt me in the slightest. What’s another word for nothing left to lose again? I’m sure our Founding Fathers knew.

I also have a bit of a fan base here at Big Hollywood. Love you too, Jimmy Arone! It is we who are are the true Hollywood rebels now, with clear ideals and senses of mission and purpose. It is the Lefty Hollywood establishment that is totally fucked, ideologically floundering and completely out of touch with the American people.  All I’m saying is that it is time to lay down some dope smacks as fighting words demand. Can I get an Amen, some tuned-out TVs and deferred movie attendance on that?