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Dissident Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof will be attending the Cannes world premiere of his latest work, “The Seed of the Sacred Fig,” having traveled to Europe clandestinely after receiving an eight-year prison sentence from the country’s authorities for making the film.
Rasoulof decided to leave Iran illegally and arrived in Europe a few days ago, shortly after being sentenced to eight years in prison and flogging by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Court. Iranian authorities also pressured the director to pull “The Seed of the Sacred Fig” from the Cannes Film Festival and harassed the film’s producers and actors.
“The Seed of the Sacred Fig” is screening at Cannes in competition on May 24 with Rasoulof in attendance, the film’s publicist confirmed.
“The Seed of the Sacred Fig,” according to the synopsis provided by sales company Films Boutique, centers on Iman — an investigating judge in the Revolutionary Court in Tehran — who grapples with mistrust and paranoia as nationwide political protests intensify and his gun mysteriously disappears. Suspecting the involvement of his wife Najmeh and his daughters, Rezvan and Sana, he imposes drastic measures at home, causing tensions to rise.
Rasoulof is among Iran’s most prominent directors, even though none of his films have screened in Iran because they have always been banned. In 2011, the year he won two prizes at Cannes with his censorship-themed “Goodbye,” he was sentenced with fellow director Jafar Panahi to six years in prison and a 20-year ban on filmmaking for alleged anti-regime propaganda. His sentence was later suspended and he was released on bail. In 2017, Iranian authorities confiscated Rasoulof’s passport upon his return from the Telluride Film Festival where his “A Man of Integrity,” about corruption and injustice in Iran, had screened.
