Metrograph

Panahi directs and stars in this docufiction miracle, which finds him posing as a share taxi driver in Tehran who, rather than demanding cash payment from customers for his services, asks only to hear something about their lives. From shift to shift, Panahi collects a marvelous bounty of quotidian anecdotes and opinions from a parade of passengers who represent the diversity of the Iranian capital, ranging from pirate video vendors to human rights lawyers. One of several films completed surreptitiously by Panahi despite his having been forbidden to practice his trade for 20 years by the Iranian government, Taxi Tehran is the song of a city sung by its residents, and proof positive that you can’t keep a born filmmaker down.

Distributor: Kino Lorber