What was the duration of the film - making ban on Panahi ?
After the film 's release a feminist protest group in Iran called the White Scarf Girls began showing up at football matches carrying banners that read : " We do n't want to be Offside " Sony Pictures Classics , the film 's U.S. distributor , wrote a letter to the Ministry of Guidance in Iran requesting that the film be shown for at least one week in its home country so that they could launch a campaign to nominate the film for Best Foreign Language Film , but the Ministry refused .