Crimson Gold

Hossein delivers pizza for a living, but he also uses his bike to earn a little extra cash bag snatching. Crimson Gold focuses on the precarious survival of a working class male and his glimpses of the very rich. Panahi emphasises these class issues in his use of geography: uptown, downtown, North Tehran, South Tehran - those wide streets that traverse and divide the city become another character. But a certain unity is forged when Hossein, prevented from delivering pizza one evening by a police raid on a middle-class party, distributes the pizza to parents waiting to collect their children from the party, the leader of the raid and the young country soldier who has no concept of fun. Crimson Gold is a very humane film that some (myself included) would argue is Panahi's best.

This film is classified M.

Watch Crimson Gold trailer here.

• Awards Special Jury Prize, 2003 Cannes Film Festival