Cannes Film Festival Joins Calls For Immediate Release Of Iranian Filmmakers Mohammad Rasoulof, Mostafa Aleahmad & Jafar Panahi

Melanie Goodfellow
·2 min read
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The Cannes Film Festival has put its weight behind calls for the immediate release of Iranian filmmakers Mohammad Rasoulof, Mostafa Aleahmad and Jafar Panahi.

Berlin Golden Bear winner Rasoulof and his colleague Aleahmad were reportedly arrested last Friday after showing support for popular protests against the Iranian authorities over the collapse of a building in May, that left 43 people dead.

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Panahi was also reported to have been arrested in Tehran on Monday. According to Iranian news agency Mehr, he was detained after going to the prosecutor’s office to follow up on what had happened to Rasoulof.

“The Festival de Cannes strongly condemns these arrests as well as the wave of repression obviously in progress in Iran against its artists. The Festival calls for the immediate release of Mohammad Rasoulof, Mostafa Aleahmad and Jafar Panahi,” said the festival.

“The Festival de Cannes also wishes to reassert its support to all those who, throughout the world, are subjected to violence and repression. The Festival remains and will always remain a haven for artists from all over the world and it will relentlessly be at their service in order to convey their voices loud and clear, in the defence of freedom of creation and freedom of speech.”

All three filmmakers have been caught in the crosshairs of the Iranian authorities in recent years, having incurred their wrath for their filmmaking.

Panahi has repeatedly found himself at odds with the Iranian authorities. In 2010, he was given a suspended six-year prison sentence and banned from making films or travelling abroad for 20 years.

He has still managed to make films under the radar including his Berlin Golden Bear winner Taxi in which he captured life in Tehran through conversations with passengers he ferried around the city in a taxi cab.

As Iran came out of its Covid-19 pandemic lockdown this year, Panahi appeared to be enjoying more freedom and has recently finished shooting his latest fiction feature No Bears, which was expected to launch at a festival in the coming months.

Both Rousolof and Panahi have strong ties with Cannes.

Mohammad Rasoulof’s film A Man Of Integrity won Cannes Un Certain Regard in 2017. His films Manuscripts Don’t Burn, won the Fipresci prize in 2013, and Goodbye won the best Best Director Prize at Un Certain Regard in 2011, He subsequently won the Golden Bear at the Berlin Festival in 2020 with There is No Evil.

Panahi has also presented numerous works at Cannes, including Three Faces, which was selected in Competition in 2018 and was awarded the Prize for Best Screenplay, as well as Crimson Gold, which won the Jury Prize in Un Certain Regard in 2003.

 

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