Mohammad Rasoulof, the dissident Iranian filmmaker who was final week sentenced to eight years in jail by the Islamic Revolution Courtroom, has fled the nation, in line with an announcement shared with the press.
The director is in an “undisclosed location” in Europe, in line with the announcement. In his assertion, Rasoulof writes: “With a heavy coronary heart, I selected exile. The Islamic Republic confiscated my passport in September 2017. Subsequently, I needed to depart Iran secretly.”
The sentencing got here forward of the 2024 Cannes Movie Competition, the place the director’s newest function, Seed of the Sacred Fig Tree is about to premiere in competitors. In right now’s assertion, Rasoulof writes that his resolution to go away the nation got here after he obtained his jail sentence and knew that his new movie was prone to earn him a brand new sentence.
He provides: “A couple of month in the past, my legal professionals knowledgeable me that my eight-year jail sentence was confirmed within the courtroom of enchantment and could be carried out on quick discover. Figuring out that the information of my new movie could be revealed very quickly, I knew that undoubtedly, a brand new sentence could be added to those eight years. I didn’t have a lot time to decide. I had to decide on between jail and leaving Iran. With a heavy coronary heart, I selected exile.”
The director, who has been an outspoken critic of Islamic Republic, was arrested in July 2022 for signing a petition calling on safety forces to train restraint in relation to fashionable protests. Launched quickly in February 2023 on well being grounds, he has remained below home arrest ever since, and was notified there could be a brand new case opened towards him about his 2020 movie There Is No Evil. Along with the eight-year jail sentence, an Iranian courtroom additionally dominated that Rasoulof could be flogged, fined, and have his property confiscated.
Final week, Rasoulof’s lawyer Babak Paknia stated on X following the sentencing, “The principle motive for issuing this sentence is for signing statements and making movies and documentaries. Within the courtroom’s opinion, these actions had been examples of collusion with the intention of committing a criminal offense towards the nation’s safety.”
It’s presently unclear if Rasoulof will likely be attending the Cannes screening of Seed of the Sacred Fig Tree. t has been reported that Iranian authorities put the director below strain to withdraw Seed of the Sacred Fig Tree from Cannes completely. Rasoulof addressed this, writing that actors and others behind the movie who’ve been unable to go away the nation are being pressured, interrogated, and banned from leaving the nation.
Learn the complete assertion from Rasoulof under.
I arrived in Europe a couple of days in the past after an extended and complex journey.
A couple of month in the past, my legal professionals knowledgeable me that my eight-year jail sentence was confirmed within the courtroom of enchantment and could be carried out on quick discover. Figuring out that the information of my new movie could be revealed very quickly, I knew that undoubtedly, a brand new sentence could be added to those eight years. I didn’t have a lot time to decide. I had to decide on between jail and leaving Iran. With a heavy coronary heart, I selected exile. The Islamic Republic confiscated my passport in September 2017. Subsequently, I needed to depart Iran secretly.
In fact, I strongly object to the unjust current ruling towards me that forces me into exile. Nonetheless, the judicial system of the Islamic Republic has issued so many merciless and unusual selections that I don’t really feel it’s my place to complain about my sentence. Dying sentences are being executed because the Islamic Republic has focused the lives of protesters and civil rights activists. It’s laborious to imagine, however proper now as I’m scripting this, the younger rapper, Toomaj Salehi is held in jail and has been sentenced to demise. The scope and depth of repression has reached some extent of brutality the place individuals anticipate information of one other heinous authorities crime daily. The prison machine of the Islamic Republic is constantly and systematically violating human rights.
Earlier than the Islamic Republic’s intelligence companies had been knowledgeable about my movie’s manufacturing, a variety of the actors managed to go away Iran. Nonetheless, lots of the actors and brokers of the movie are nonetheless in Iran and the intelligence system is pressuring them. They’ve been put by means of prolonged interrogations. The households of a few of them had been summoned and threatened. Attributable to their look on this film, courtroom circumstances had been filed towards them, and so they had been banned from leaving the nation. They raided the workplace of the cinematographer, and all his work gear was taken away. Additionally they prevented the movie’s sound engineer from touring to Canada. Through the interrogations of the movie crew, the intelligence forces requested them to strain me to withdraw the movie from the Cannes Competition. They had been attempting to persuade the movie crew that they weren’t conscious of the movie’s story and that they’d been manipulated into collaborating within the mission.
Regardless of the huge limitations I and my colleagues and buddies confronted whereas making the movie, I attempted to attain a cinematic narrative that’s removed from the narrative dominated by the censorship within the Islamic Republic, and nearer to its actuality. I’ve little doubt that limiting and suppressing freedom of expression can’t be justified even when it turns into a spur for creativity, however when there isn’t a approach, a approach have to be made.
The world’s cinema neighborhood should guarantee efficient assist for the makers of such movies. Freedom of speech ought to be defended, loudly and clearly. Individuals who courageously and selflessly confront censorship as an alternative of supporting it are reassured of the significance of their actions by the assist of worldwide movie organizations. As I do know from private expertise, it may be a useful assist for them to proceed their very important work.
Many individuals helped to make this movie. My ideas are with all of them, and I concern for his or her security and well-being.”