Jafar Panahi, internationally acclaimed Iranian filmmaker - winner of numerous awards including the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival and the Silver Bear at the Berlin Film Festival - has been arrested and held without charge following a raid on his Tehran home in March.

We're screening one of his films tonight in response to the call for people to hold screenings of his films around the world between 15-21 April. In the UK, there are screening in Manchester and Birmingham that we know of so far.

There is much more info and a Facebook group you can join here:

http://bit.ly/ckUt3S

and on Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jafar_Panahi

We showed Offside in 2007 to a packed house, and we'll either be showing that, The Circle or Crimson Gold, depending which is easiest and cheapest to show. We'd love this to be a free screening but we will update once we know the price and may need to charge to cover the costs (won't be more than usual S+S prices)

Bahman Ghobadi, director of Nobody Knows About Persian Cats, screened recently at Side Cinema, is unable to return home to Iran following the making of his film; before his arrest Panahi was stopped from travelling to film festivals. We can still watch their films though...