The Iranian film director Mohammad Rasoulof has secretly fled Iran after he was sentenced to prison amid pressure over his latest film, The Seed of the Sacred Fig, which is due to premiere at the Cannes film festival this week.
Jean-Christophe Simon, CEO of Films Boutique and Parallel45, distributors of the film, confirmed on Monday that Rasoulof had fled Iran for Europe. “We are very happy and much relieved that Mohammad has safely arrived in Europe after a dangerous journey. We hope he will be able to attend the Cannes premiere,” he said.
Rasoulof, 52, one of Iran’s leading directors, has won a string of international prizes at festivals even though his films have been banned in Iran. Since The Seed of the Sacred Fig was announced as part of the official competition at Cannes, the director and the festival had come under pressure from Iranian authorities to pull the film.
Last week, Rasoulof was sentenced to eight years in prison, flogging, a fine and the confiscation of property.
It was not clear how Rasoulof had left Iran, or whether he crossed the mountainous land border with Turkey.
In a statement published by Variety on Monday, Rasoulof said: “I arrived in Europe a few days ago after a long and complicated journey … I didn’t have much time to make a decision. I had to choose between prison and leaving Iran. With a heavy heart, I chose exile. The Islamic Republic confiscated my passport in September 2017. Therefore, I had to leave Iran secretly.”
In his statement, Rasoulof criticised what he called the brutal repression of the Iranian regime. Authorities have cracked down on protests that followed the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish-Iranian woman detained for allegedly not properly wearing the Islamic headscarf in 2022. In the largest wave of popular unrest in recent years in Iran, demonstrations against the clerical establishment have grown into a broad movement to challenge the theocracy that has ruled Iran since 1979.
The regime’s crackdown against protests has included last month’s sentencing to death of 33-year-old Iranian rapper Toomaj Salehi after he protested in support of women’s rights.
