E-Mail This Article to a Friend Gold standard Jafar Panahi takes heat from East and West BY PETER KEOUGH

Like a lot of artists, Jafar Panahi is a man stuck in the middle. As an Iranian filmmaker, he’s subject to the restrictions, censorship, and occasional death sentences handed down by his country’s theocratic regime. Iran has banned two of his four films — The Circle and his latest, Crimson Gold — from domestic screening. On the other hand, as an Iranian filmmaker, he’s subject to being shackled to a bench for 12 hours at JFK Airport by immigration authorities. This occurred on April 15, 2001, months before September 11. Panahi was making a connection for a flight to the Buenos Aires Film Festival. He was told by agents that he would need a visa and would have to be fingerprinted and photographed. He refused and paid the price. Nice to know that these guys were doing their job shaking down film directors while Mohammed Atta and his cronies were running around taking flight lessons and buying box cutters.

"It was truly a shock for me; I would never have expected that of a country like America," recalls Panahi, who now refuses to travel here. (When we spoke on the phone, he was at a film festival in Sofia; he spoke through a translator patched in from Los Angeles.) "These are things that in our own country cause us suffering, and when we observe them, we try to make films about it."

Hence Crimson Gold, which Panahi decided to make after reading a newspaper story about a foiled jewelry-store robbery. His frequent collaborator, the great Abbas Kiarostami, wrote the screenplay. And for the anti-heroic lead — a pissed-off, mentally unstable pizza deliveryman and war veteran — Panahi cast Hussein Emadeddin, a pissed-off, unstable pizza deliveryman and war veteran.

"When you are a social filmmaker, your inspiration comes from the society you live in and from the people of that society," Panahi explains. "We found Hussein, and we felt that there would be nobody else who could fill that role. His physical body, his voice, his gaze . . . I believe that everyone can act, but that for each part there is one perfect person. And when we found Hussein, it was for us to then accommodate him and to build our work around him."

More easily said than done. Hussein had a paranoid streak and a habit of trashing the set.

"Several times during the film it seemed to me that I would not be able to continue," Panahi continues. "But because I am someone who does not leave things unfinished, I went on, at the same time thinking, ‘What am I going to do if he suddenly just leaves?’ I decided that should he not show up, from that point on, I would shoot everything from his point of view, and I would later get somebody to imitate his voice and dub that in as a voiceover. This thought allowed me to continue working, and I regained my confidence."

As it happens, Hussein’s overwhelming performance vindicates Panahi’s perseverance. But what, we wonder, has happened with Hussein since?

"He continues to deliver pizza on his motorcycle. The last time I was in touch with him was a couple of weeks ago. He was interested in getting a poster for the film, and he said he really wants to see it. I told him that I was trying hard to obtain permission to have a private screening so that he could. At any rate, during the history of cinema, films never remain banned forever; they always end up being seen. The question is, when they are seen, are they still relevant? Or do they have an expiration date as their content expired? I’ve always tried to make films that don’t have an expiration date."

Crimson Gold opens this Friday, March 26, at the Kendall Square.