Saeed Roustayi sentenced for presenting Leïla and her brothers at Cannes

Iranian justice judged the Cannes screening of his latest film as “anti-regime propaganda”.

Since the arrest of the directors Jafar Panahi (Three faces, Taxi Tehran) And Mohammad Rasoulof (The devil does not exist, A man of integrity) last July in Tehran, the wave of repression against Iranian cinema intensified. It’s the turn of the 32-year-old filmmaker, Saeed Roustayi (revealed for his prison thriller Tehran law, one of the biggest commercial successes in the country), to be sentenced to prison. “Tehran’s Revolutionary Court convicted Saeed Roustayi and Javad Norouzbeigui, the film’s director and producer Leila and her brothersto six months in prison”reported the reformist daily Etemad. The sentence is accompanied by a ban on filming for five years, and on communicating with all people active in the field of cinema.

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For the Iranian authorities, the rise of the steps of the cast of Leila and her brothers (presented at Cannes in official competition) would have contributed to “the opposition’s propaganda against the Islamic system”. Its director would have “breaks the rules by participating without authorization in foreign festivals (…) in Cannes and then in Munich” and refused to “to correct” his work as requested by the Cinematographic Organization of his country, responsible for granting distribution authorizations. The family drama, which portrayed a poor family in an Iran plunged into a deep economic crisis, had been banned in the country since its release last year.

One of the actresses starring in the film, Taraneh Alidoostifigure of Iranian cinema (famous for his roles in several films ofAsghar Farhadi) and an ardent women’s rights activist, had also been arrested by the Iranian morality police, in connection with the protest movement that has been agitating the country for almost a year. The news had quickly caused consternation in the world of the seventh art. “The courageous actress from Iran was arrested”had denounced on social networks his colleague Golshifteh Farahani, forced into exile in 2008.

Saeed Roustayi should get a reduced sentence. The verdict could be appealed in “the twenty days following its notification”, said the Iranian newspaper. For now, many messages of support are brought to him on social networks.

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