Iran: Five years in prison for filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof one week before the Cannes Film Festival

This is his longest sentence while his latest film, The Seed of the Sacred Fig, is in competition this year for the Palme d'Or.

There 77th edition of the Cannes Film Festival has not yet started and it already promises to be eventful. A few days ago, an Iranian court handed down its verdict and convicted the filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof to eight years in prison, including five years applicable, for “collusion against national security”. In a tweet, his lawyer, Babak Paknia, adds that the sentence also includes flogging, a fine and confiscation of his property.

News that comes a few days before the Cannes Film Festival where the director will be in competition with his latest film The Seed of the Sacred Fig – the story of an investigating judge at Tehran's revolutionary court struck by distrust and paranoia as political protests intensify. The Iranian government had been putting pressure on the film team for several months to withdraw it from international competitions. In an email exchange with the British media, The Guardianthe lawyer said:

“He (Mohammad Rasoulof) is accused of having carried out The Seed of the Sacred Fig without having obtained authorization from the competent authorities. Other accusations relate to actresses who do not wear the hijab correctly or who have been filmed without a hijab.

Following his conviction, the president of the NGO Iran Human Rights spoke in a tweet: “One by one, the Islamic Republic attacks its artistic voices, muzzling dissonant voices through imprisonment or worse.”

If this is not the first time that the filmmaker has been arrested and then tried, it is his longest sentence. At 52, Mohammad Rasoulof was first arrested in 2010 with Jafar Panahianother distinguished Iranian director for “acts and propaganda hostile to the Islamic Republic of Iran.” He is sentenced to one year in prison – just like in 2017 and 2019.

In July 2022, after encouraging demonstrators following the collapse of a building that killed more than forty people in southwest Iran, he signed a pacifist op-ed with several other Iranian filmmakers, “put down your weapons”, denouncing violence against violence and corruption. All this led to his arrest and those of his colleagues Jafar Panahi and Mostafa Aleahmad.

Filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof arrested in Iran

International opinion mobilized and made its disapproval known. In a press release, the Cannes Film Festival demanded their release:

“The Festival remains and will always remain the refuge of artists from around the world and will tirelessly put itself at their service in order to raise their voices loud and clear, in defense of freedom of creation and expression.”

Mohammad Rasoulof was temporarily released in January 2023 for health reasons, but was still subject to a total ban on leaving the country. Today, he is therefore sentenced to eight years in prison.

Relentlessly denouncing corruption in Iran and questioning exile, Rasoulof stands out on the international scene with A man of integrity – winner of the Un Certain Regard prize at the Cannes Film Festival in 2017.

At that time, during an interview given to Firsthe declared about his film:

“The social situation that is described is close to the nightmarish reality that we experience. We must show how the structure in place influences the intimate lives of individuals.”

Mohammad Rasoulof: “Iranian cinema is a road and each filmmaker has his own car”

Three years later, he won the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival for The devil does not exist. “An angry and angry plea filmed clandestinely, but which does not forget to be grandiose and romantic” we write to First.

In recent years, the Islamic Republic of Iran has hardened its theocratic regime, becoming more severe and repressive. The latest demonstrations, following the death of Jina Mahsa Amini, 22, who died after her arrest by the moral police for “violating the dress code”, were the subject of reprisals by the authorities who are trying to to quell the revolt.

If some intellectuals are forced into exile, others remain in the country and risk prison. Last year, Iranian actress Taraneh Alidoosti was arrested for supporting the “Women, Life, Freedom” protest movement, and the director Saeed Roustaee was sentenced to six months in prison for “contribute to the propaganda of the opposition against the Islamic system” with the screening of his film Leila and her brothers on the Croisette.

For the moment, the Cannes Film Festival has not commented on the conviction of Mohammad Rasoulof.

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