Taxi

Taxi (تاکسی, 2015) is Jafar Panahi's Iranian tragicomedy, and you can watch it online on iFILM. A yellow cab loops through Tehran with the director himself at the wheel — a man the authorities have banned from making films or leaving the country.

A small camera sits fixed to the dashboard and barely moves. The passengers, though, keep changing: a man hawking bootleg DVDs, an accident victim dictating his will, two superstitious old women carrying a goldfish bowl, a human-rights lawyer. Each one talks past the others, and together they sketch a whole society. The standout is Panahi's young niece Hana, assigned to shoot a "distributable" film for school and ready to lecture her uncle on the censors' rules.

Panahi turned the cab into a tiny mobile studio precisely to slip past the ban on his work. The film took the Golden Bear at the 2015 Berlinale, where Hana accepted the prize because her uncle could not travel. It rewards anyone who values nerve and quiet wit. Stream Taxi (2015) online on iFILM.