Following Crimson Gold, Jafar Panahi's hot streak continues with Offside, the closest he’s got to a comedy yet. Filmed at Tehran’s Azadi Stadium during the actual World Cup qualifier match between Iran and Bahrain, the film exists in a semi-documentary state, resting comfortably on a host of (quintessentially Iranian) naturalistic performances from a cast of non-professionals.

As we follow the somewhat meek young girl, poorly disguised in drag in an attempt to fool officials and enter the stadium for the all-important match (since women in Iran aren’t allowed to attend any sporting event in a stadium), the gracefully swift movement of ‘narrative’ in these early scenes from a bus to a swarming pre-match crowd outside the stadium to the makeshift cell at the walls of the stadium (where captured women are held awaiting punishment), gives way to a remarkably spontaneous series of episodes and conversations between the bold captured women and their decidedly less articulate captors, where the principle subject happens to be the absurd paradoxes within the Iranian social structure. One of the film’s great pleasures is witnessing its own structure emerge parallel to the football match (Panahi: “When I was shooting the film, I didn't really know what was going to happen. We desperately wanted Iran to win...”), and its upbeat ending surely is evidence of some of the game’s ecstasy dusted off onto Panahi's canvas. Still, the filmmaker’s principle obsessions (nationalism/feminism/humanitarianism in a modern world) are on full display here, sans-didacticism. Absurdist, thrilling, and very moving.—Mubarak Ali