The Circle Iran - 91 minutes. Friday, July 27 at 6:00 pm Directed by Jafar Panahi (“The White Balloon”) who returns with a quietly devastating drama that lays bare the repressive social codes governing women in Iran. He weaves a sinuous spell that knocks you flat by the final scene. All of the women stalked by the camera in this shattering drama have served time for reasons that are never made entirely explicit. As we watch them go about the bustling labyrinth of Tehran, we begin to conclude that the crime that unites them is simply walking while female. They find themselves beset by a series of codes and restrictions that effectively extend their incarceration into the outside world. Panahi blends professional and nonprofessional actors with seamless effectiveness. While he avoids polemics, The Circle is as potent an indictment of a social order as the novels of Kafka and the great Italian neo-realist films of the 1940s and 1950s. (In Farsi with English subtitles). A Winstar Cinema release.