Iranian Director Mohammad Rasoulof Sentenced to Prison, Flogging Ahead of Cannes
In 2023, Iran barred Rasoulof from leaving the country to serve on the Festival’s Un Certain Regard jury.
Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof has been sentenced by the Islamic Revolutionary Court to eight years in prison, flogging, and confiscation of property. The ruling came down just days before the start of the Cannes Film Festival, where Rasoulof is premiering his newest film in competition, The Seed of the Sacred Fig. According to translated tweets from Rasoulof’s lawyer, Babak Paknia, he was sentenced for “signing statements and making films and documentaries,” which the court sees as “examples of collusion with the intention of committing a crime against the country’s security.”
This ruling is just the latest act of persecution by the Iranian government against Rasoulof, who has been arrested numerous times for his films’ alleged “propaganda against the system.” His work deals with topics including capital punishment and the persecution of writers. One such film, A Man of Integrity, won Un Certain Regard at Cannes in 2017. Authorities confiscated Rasoulof’s passport and banned him from leaving the country that same year. In 2023, he was invited to serve on the Un Certain Regard jury but was banned from traveling abroad yet again on charges of “propaganda against the regime” for his 2022 posts criticizing state violence against protesters. Iranian filmmakers Jafar Panahi and Mostafa al-Ahmad were also jailed during this wave of crackdowns against dissenting speech. At the time, the International Coalition for Filmmakers at Risk issued a statement directed at the Iranian government, titled “Let Mohammad Rasoulof Go!” Panahi was released from prison in March 2023 after going on hunger strike. Rasoulof is not yet in prison following this latest sentencing.
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