“We create works that are not dictated, that’s why people in power see us as criminals,” the director says in a letter co-signed by his colleague Mohammad Rasulov, a copy of which came into AFP’s possession before the festival of Venice.
Filmmaker Jafar Panahi, who has been sentenced to six years in prison in Iran, has accused his country’s authorities of treating independent filmmakers as “criminals” in a letter to the organizing committee of the Venice film festival, where he is vying for Gold this year. Leo.
“We create works that are not dictated, that’s why people in power see us as criminals,” sums up the director in a letter co-signed by his colleague Mohammad Rasulov, a copy of which came into AFP’s possession before the festival .
A dissident artist, Mr. Panahi, one of Iran’s most prominent filmmakers, was arrested and sentenced in 2010 to six years in prison and banned for 20 years from making or writing film scripts, traveling and even speaking to the media. He is still allowed to work and live in Iran.
He had been found guilty of “propaganda against the regime” after supporting the 2009 protest movement against the re-election of ultra-conservative Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as president of the Islamic Republic.
On July 11, Mr. Panahi was arrested as he arrived at the Tehran Prosecutor’s Office to attend the case of Mohammad Rasoulov, who has been detained since July 8 along with his colleague Mustafa Aleahmad.
“The history of Iranian cinema testifies to the permanent and active presence of independent directors, fighting against censorship and to guarantee the survival of this art. Among them, some were banned from making films, others were forced into exile, or thrown into isolation,” the two filmmakers continue in the text.
“We are directors, independent directors,” they insist.
Neo-realist director Jafar Panahi, who is in competition at the Venice festival this year with The Bears Don’t Exist, won a Golden Lion in 2000 for The Circle and won a screenplay prize at Cannes in 2018 for The Three Faces , three years after the Golden Bear in Berlin for the film Taxi. The Iranian lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh was also awarded for this last film.
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