Iranian auteur Mohammad Rasoulof has been sentenced to eight years in prison, flogging, a fine and confiscation of his property, according to his lawyer.
Posting today on social media platform X, human rights lawyer Babak Paknia, who represents the filmmaker, said the Islamic Revolutionary Court had issued the verdict.
“The main reason for issuing this sentence is signing statements and making films and documentaries, which, according to the court, are examples of collusion and collusion with the intention of committing a crime against the country’s security,” he said
Iranian authorities had reportedly been putting pressure on Rasoulof to pull his latest feature The Seed Of The Sacred Fig from the Cannes Film Festival, where it is due to receive its premiere in Competition on May 24.
The director has faced censorship challenges in Iran for nearly 20 years and served prison time for the critical eye that his films cast on the consequences of life under authoritarian rule.
His latest feature centres on an investigating judge in the Revolutionary Court in Tehran, who grapples mistrust and paranoia as nationwide political protests intensify, leading to suspicion of his own family.
Paknia previously detailed how some of the actors and production crew had been summoned and questioned by Iranian authorities for several hours before being banned from leaving the country to attend the festival. They were also instructed to ask Rasoulof to withdraw the film from Cannes.
The filmmaker has a long history with Cannes, having previously played in Un Certain Regard with Goodbye in 2011, for which he won the directing prize; Manuscripts Don’t Burn in 2013, winning the Fipresci prize; and A Man Of Integrity in 2017, scooping the top prize in the parallel strand.
However, after that win, his passport was confiscated on his return to Iran. In July 2019, he was convicted by the Islamic Revolutionary Court of Iran to one year in prison and a two-year ban on leaving the country, accused of “gathering and collusion against national security and of propaganda against the system” – a verdict he appealed.
The travel ban meant he was unable to attend the Berlinale in February 2020, where his film There Is No Evil won the Golden Bear, and the following month was sentenced to a year in prison for producing “propaganda against the system” and was banned from making films and travelling abroad for two years.
He also served jail time in Tehran from July 2022 to February 2023 for speaking out on social media against the repression of civil protestors in Iran. When released for health reasons, a ban on leaving the country remained in place and Rasoulof was prevented from attending Cannes last year, where he had been invited to sit on the jury for the Un Certain Regard section.
It had been previously unclear as to whether the filmmaker would attend this year’s Cannes, which runs from May 14-25.
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