Director flees Iran ahead of film premier at Cannes after receiving prison sentence
After being sentenced to eight years in prison, the award-winning Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof says he has fled to Europe shortly ahead of the Cannes Film Festival premiere of his latest film.
“I arrived in Europe a few days ago after a long and complicated journey,” Rasoulof said in a statement dated Sunday and distributed by press agents yesterday.
Last week, Rasoulof 's lawyer said the director had been sentenced to eight years in prison, flogging and confiscation of property by the Islamic Republic.
Ra soul of' s attorney, Babak Paknia, said the filmmaker was being punished for making films and signing statements.
Iranian authorities have not yet acknowledged Rasoulof 's sentence and there was no immediate comment on his departure.
Ra soul of and other artists had co-signed a letter urging authorities to put down their weapons amid demonstrations over a 2022 building collapse that killed at least 29 people in the south-western city of Abadan.
Rasoulof, 51, is the latest artist targeted in a widening crack down on all dissent in Iran following years of mass protests, including over the 2022 death of Mahsa Amini. His 2020 film There Is No Evil won the Golden Bear prize at Berlin in 2020.
Rasoulof said the prison sentence came before he revealed his latest film, The Seed Of The Sacred Fig which premieres in competition in Cannes on May 24. “Knowing that the news of my new film would be revealed very soon, I knew that without a doubt, a new sentence would be added to these eight years,” said Rasoulof. “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.”
Rasoulof said he strongly objected to his ruling but noted many others have been handed death sentences in the crackdown.
“The scope and intensity of repression has reached a point of brutality where people expect news of another heinous government crime every day,” said Rasoulof. “The criminal machine of the Islamic Republic is continuously and systematicallyviolating human rights .”
Rasoulof is currently in an undisclosed location. It is unclear if he will attend the Cannes premiere of his film.