The New York Film Festival has long been an admired curator of cinema, hosting world and U.S. premieres of acclaimed international films since its founding in 1963. Now, the renowned festival is aiming to add another layer to its legacy of cinema advocacy by commissioning new films.

At the upcoming 64th edition, the festival will launch the new NYFF Encounters initiative, which invites a director with a film in the lineup to shoot a new short film at the festival; each will premiere at the following edition. IndieWire can exclusively reveal that the inaugural film will be “South of Tehran,” Kleber Mendonça Filho‘s documentary short about Jafar Panahi that was shot at NYFF in 2025.

The eight-minute film, which follows Panahi throughout New York as he reflects on his film career and the persecution in his native Iran that led to his current imprisonment, was filmed in a day while the two directors were in town to screen “The Secret Agent” and “It Was Just an Accident,” respectively. The film takes inspiration from “Pier Paolo Pasolini — Agnès Varda — New York — 1967,” a short film that Varda made about Pasolini during the fourth NYFF in 1967.

“The New York Film Festival is, above all, a place of encounter — among filmmakers, audiences, films, and the city itself. We invite each commissioned filmmaker to capture that spirit while leaving the choice of subject and style up to them,” NYFF artistic director Dennis Lim said in a statement. “Our hope is that these films become lasting records of the spontaneous, stimulating moments that are central to the festival experience and, over time, form a historical archive as significant as our iconic poster collection.”

“I love the fact that my next film was suggested by Dennis Lim, much like a challenge,” Mendonça added. “I accepted the challenge and got to shoot a little film at NYFF last year with the wonderful Jafar Panahi. Happy to screen it at NYFF this year. Thank you, Dennis.”

The 64th New York Film Festival runs from September 25-October 12. The festival’s complete Main Slate lineup can be found here.