MUMBAI: Organisers of the Montreal World Film Festival (MWFF) are hopeful that well-known Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi will come over to Canada this month for a film retrospective.

Panahi‘s latest film The Accordion is to be shown at the upcoming festival that will be held from 26 August to 9 September. The short film about a pair of young street musicians has also been booked for the Venice Film Festival.

MWFF president Serge Losique said Iranian judges have withheld Panahi‘s travel passport even after his release from Tehran‘s Evin prison in May after a protest from the international film community.

Losique said that he received an email from Panahi recently indicating a possibility that he might be able retrieve his passport that was confiscated on his latest arrest and imprisonment for unspecified charges in October last year.

A major figure in Iran‘s New Wave film movement, Panahi attended last year‘s MWFF as head of the festival jury.