Tag: Iranian filmmaker

  • Prominent Iranian director Dariush Mehrjui stabbed to death

    By AFP

    TEHRAN: One of Iran’s most prominent film-makers, Dariush Mehrjui, was stabbed to death on Saturday evening alongside his wife at their home near Tehran.

    A provincial chief justice said Mehrjui and his wife, Vahideh Mohammadifar, “were killed by multiple stab wounds to the neck”, the judiciary’s Mizan Online website said.

    According to Hossein Fazeli-Harikandi, chief justice of Alborz province near Tehran, Mehrjui sent a text message to his daughter, Mona, at about 9:00 pm local time (1730 GMT) inviting her for dinner at their home in Karaj, west of Tehran.

    But upon her arrival an hour and a half later, she found the bodies of her dead parents with fatal wounds to their necks.

    Later in the day, police said “no signs of forced entry can be seen at the crime scene”, adding that “no damage has been done to the doors” of their home.

    However, they said “traces have been found” at the scene they believe to be “related to the murderer”.

    According to Iran’s ISNA news agency, quoting the police headquarters, four suspects have been identified for their links with the case and two have been arrested.

    On Sunday, the Etemad newspaper included an interview with the film-maker’s wife saying she had been threatened and that their home had been burgled.

    “The investigation revealed that no complaints had been filed regarding the illegal entry into the Mehrjui’s family villa and the theft of their belongings”, said Fazeli-Harikandi.

    ‘Everything is political’In a statement, Iran’s minister of culture, Mohammad-Mehdi Esmaili, hailed Mehrjui as “one of the pioneers of Iranian cinema” and “the creator of eternal works”.

    Born on December 8, 1939 in Tehran, Mehrjui studied philosophy in the United States before his return to Iran where he launched a literary magazine and released his first film in 1967, “Diamond 33”, a parody of the James Bond series.

    The 83-year-old was indelibly associated with the Iranian new wave of cinema, with his 1969 film “The Cow” one of the movement’s first pictures.

    He then directed a string of well-regarded films including “Mr Gullible” (1970), “The Cycle” (1977) before leaving Iran in the wake of the 1979 Islamic revolution.

    Between 1980 and 1985, he lived in France where he worked on the documentary “Journey to the Land of Rimbaud” (1983).

    On returning to his homeland, he triumphed at the box office with “The Tenants” (1987).

    In 1990, he directed “Hamoun”, a dark comedy showing 24 hours in the life of an intellectual tormented by divorce and psychological anxieties in an Iran overwhelmed by the technology companies Sony and Toshiba.

    Throughout the 1990s, Mehrjui also depicted the lives of women in “Sara” (1993), “Pari” (1995) and “Leila” (1997), a melodrama about an infertile woman who encourages her husband to marry a second woman.

    In interviews with the Iranian media, Mehrjui said he was “greatly influenced” by Swedish filmmaker Ingmar Bergman and Italian Michelangelo Antonioni.

    “I don’t make directly political films to promote a particular ideology or point of view. But everything is political,” he once said.

    To Mehrjui, cinema was like “poetry, which cannot take sides with anyone” and he remained adamant that “art must not become a propaganda tool”.

    In addition to his cinema career, he translated works by the French playwright Eugene Ionesco and the German Marxist philosopher Herbert Marcuse into Persian.  Follow The New Indian Express channel on WhatsApp

    TEHRAN: One of Iran’s most prominent film-makers, Dariush Mehrjui, was stabbed to death on Saturday evening alongside his wife at their home near Tehran.

    A provincial chief justice said Mehrjui and his wife, Vahideh Mohammadifar, “were killed by multiple stab wounds to the neck”, the judiciary’s Mizan Online website said.

    According to Hossein Fazeli-Harikandi, chief justice of Alborz province near Tehran, Mehrjui sent a text message to his daughter, Mona, at about 9:00 pm local time (1730 GMT) inviting her for dinner at their home in Karaj, west of Tehran.googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display(‘div-gpt-ad-8052921-2’); });

    But upon her arrival an hour and a half later, she found the bodies of her dead parents with fatal wounds to their necks.

    Later in the day, police said “no signs of forced entry can be seen at the crime scene”, adding that “no damage has been done to the doors” of their home.

    However, they said “traces have been found” at the scene they believe to be “related to the murderer”.

    According to Iran’s ISNA news agency, quoting the police headquarters, four suspects have been identified for their links with the case and two have been arrested.

    On Sunday, the Etemad newspaper included an interview with the film-maker’s wife saying she had been threatened and that their home had been burgled.

    “The investigation revealed that no complaints had been filed regarding the illegal entry into the Mehrjui’s family villa and the theft of their belongings”, said Fazeli-Harikandi.

    ‘Everything is political’
    In a statement, Iran’s minister of culture, Mohammad-Mehdi Esmaili, hailed Mehrjui as “one of the pioneers of Iranian cinema” and “the creator of eternal works”.

    Born on December 8, 1939 in Tehran, Mehrjui studied philosophy in the United States before his return to Iran where he launched a literary magazine and released his first film in 1967, “Diamond 33”, a parody of the James Bond series.

    The 83-year-old was indelibly associated with the Iranian new wave of cinema, with his 1969 film “The Cow” one of the movement’s first pictures.

    He then directed a string of well-regarded films including “Mr Gullible” (1970), “The Cycle” (1977) before leaving Iran in the wake of the 1979 Islamic revolution.

    Between 1980 and 1985, he lived in France where he worked on the documentary “Journey to the Land of Rimbaud” (1983).

    On returning to his homeland, he triumphed at the box office with “The Tenants” (1987).

    In 1990, he directed “Hamoun”, a dark comedy showing 24 hours in the life of an intellectual tormented by divorce and psychological anxieties in an Iran overwhelmed by the technology companies Sony and Toshiba.

    Throughout the 1990s, Mehrjui also depicted the lives of women in “Sara” (1993), “Pari” (1995) and “Leila” (1997), a melodrama about an infertile woman who encourages her husband to marry a second woman.

    In interviews with the Iranian media, Mehrjui said he was “greatly influenced” by Swedish filmmaker Ingmar Bergman and Italian Michelangelo Antonioni.

    “I don’t make directly political films to promote a particular ideology or point of view. But everything is political,” he once said.

    To Mehrjui, cinema was like “poetry, which cannot take sides with anyone” and he remained adamant that “art must not become a propaganda tool”.

    In addition to his cinema career, he translated works by the French playwright Eugene Ionesco and the German Marxist philosopher Herbert Marcuse into Persian.
      Follow The New Indian Express channel on WhatsApp

  • Jailed Iranian filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof released temporarily

    By AFP

    TEHRAN: Award-winning Iranian filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof, jailed half a year ago over protests related to a building collapse, has been released for two weeks because of health concerns, his lawyer said Wednesday.

    Rasoulof, 50, was arrested on July 8 after being accused of encouraging demonstrations that erupted after the deadly collapse of a building in May in the southwestern city of Abadan.

    After the tragedy, a group of Iranian filmmakers led by Rasoulof published an open letter decrying “corruption, theft, inefficiency and repression” and urging the security forces to “lay down their arms”.

    “My client’s incarceration has been suspended for two weeks for health reasons,” the director’s lawyer Maryam Kianersi told AFP, adding that he had been “released on Saturday”.

    The lawyer added that her client “is now discharged from hospital and is recovering at home”.

    The release comes as Iran has been gripped by nearly four months of protests triggered by the death in custody of 22-year-old Iranian Kurd Mahsa Amini following her arrest for allegedly violating Iran’s strict dress code for women.

    Iranian authorities say hundreds of people, including members of the security forces, have been killed and thousands arrested during the protests which they mostly describe as “riots”.

    Rasoulof won the Golden Bear at the 2020 Berlin International Film Festival with his anti-death penalty film “There Is No Evil” but was unable to accept the award in person as he was barred from leaving Iran.

    His passport had been confiscated after his 2017 film “A Man of Integrity” premiered at Cannes, where it won the top prize in the Un Certain Regard section of the festival.

    On July 11, authorities arrested the internationally renowned dissident filmmaker Jafar Panahi upon his arrival at the Tehran prosecutor’s office to follow up on Rasoulof’s case.

    TEHRAN: Award-winning Iranian filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof, jailed half a year ago over protests related to a building collapse, has been released for two weeks because of health concerns, his lawyer said Wednesday.

    Rasoulof, 50, was arrested on July 8 after being accused of encouraging demonstrations that erupted after the deadly collapse of a building in May in the southwestern city of Abadan.

    After the tragedy, a group of Iranian filmmakers led by Rasoulof published an open letter decrying “corruption, theft, inefficiency and repression” and urging the security forces to “lay down their arms”.

    “My client’s incarceration has been suspended for two weeks for health reasons,” the director’s lawyer Maryam Kianersi told AFP, adding that he had been “released on Saturday”.

    The lawyer added that her client “is now discharged from hospital and is recovering at home”.

    The release comes as Iran has been gripped by nearly four months of protests triggered by the death in custody of 22-year-old Iranian Kurd Mahsa Amini following her arrest for allegedly violating Iran’s strict dress code for women.

    Iranian authorities say hundreds of people, including members of the security forces, have been killed and thousands arrested during the protests which they mostly describe as “riots”.

    Rasoulof won the Golden Bear at the 2020 Berlin International Film Festival with his anti-death penalty film “There Is No Evil” but was unable to accept the award in person as he was barred from leaving Iran.

    His passport had been confiscated after his 2017 film “A Man of Integrity” premiered at Cannes, where it won the top prize in the Un Certain Regard section of the festival.

    On July 11, authorities arrested the internationally renowned dissident filmmaker Jafar Panahi upon his arrival at the Tehran prosecutor’s office to follow up on Rasoulof’s case.

  • Iran film-maker Jafar Panahi convicted in propaganda case, to serve six-year sentence

    By AFP

    TEHRAN: Award-winning dissident Iranian film-maker Jafar Panahi, arrested last week in Tehran, must serve a six-year sentence previously handed to him in 2010, the judicial authority announced Tuesday.

    Panahi, 62, has won a number of awards at international festivals for films that have critiqued modern Iran, including the top prize in Berlin for “Taxi” in 2015, and best screenplay at Cannes for his film “Three Faces” in 2018.

    He is the third director to be detained this month, alongside Mostafa Aleahmad and Mohammad Rasoulof, who won the Golden Bear in Berlin in 2020 with his film “There Is No Evil”.

    “Panahi had been sentenced in 2010 to a total of six years in prison… and therefore he was entered into Evin detention centre to serve his sentence there”, judiciary spokesman Massoud Setayeshi told reporters.

    He was arrested in 2010, following his support for anti-government demonstrations.

    He was convicted of “propaganda against the system”, sentenced to six years in jail, banned from directing or writing films and blocked from leaving the country.

    But he served only two months in jail in 2010, and was subsequently living on conditional release that could be revoked at any time.

    Panahi was arrested again on July 11 after he went to the prosecutor’s office to follow up on the situation of Rasoulof.

    The arrests come after Panahi and Rasoulof denounced in May the arrests of several colleagues in their homeland in an open letter.

    Series of arrests

    Despite the political pressures, Iran has a thriving film industry and the country’s products regularly win awards at major international festivals.

    Panahi’s detention has sparked condemnation from fellow filmmakers.

    Cannes film festival organisers said they “strongly condemn” the arrests as well as “the wave of repression evidently under way in Iran against its artists”.

    The Venice film festival called for the “immediate release” of the directors, while the Berlin film festival said it was “dismayed and outraged” at the arrest.

    France’s foreign ministry on Friday expressed concern at the “arbitrary” arrests of the filmmakers, citing a “worrying deterioration in the situation of artists in Iran”.

    Iran has in recent weeks arrested several leading figures, including reformist politician Mostafa Tajzadeh who was detained on July 8.

    Tajzadeh “is currently in pre-trial detention in Evin” prison and “his accusation is gathering and collusion with the intention of acting against the country’s security and propaganda against the system,” Setayeshi said on Tuesday.

    The politician, who last year made an unsuccessful bid for the presidency, was arrested in 2009 during protests disputing the re-election of former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

    Tajzadeh, who had long campaigned for democratic and “structural changes” in the Islamic republic was convicted in 2010 on charges of harming national security and propaganda against the state before being released in 2016 after serving his sentence.

    He had served as deputy interior minister during the 1997-2005 tenure of reformist former president Mohammad Khatami.

    TEHRAN: Award-winning dissident Iranian film-maker Jafar Panahi, arrested last week in Tehran, must serve a six-year sentence previously handed to him in 2010, the judicial authority announced Tuesday.

    Panahi, 62, has won a number of awards at international festivals for films that have critiqued modern Iran, including the top prize in Berlin for “Taxi” in 2015, and best screenplay at Cannes for his film “Three Faces” in 2018.

    He is the third director to be detained this month, alongside Mostafa Aleahmad and Mohammad Rasoulof, who won the Golden Bear in Berlin in 2020 with his film “There Is No Evil”.

    “Panahi had been sentenced in 2010 to a total of six years in prison… and therefore he was entered into Evin detention centre to serve his sentence there”, judiciary spokesman Massoud Setayeshi told reporters.

    He was arrested in 2010, following his support for anti-government demonstrations.

    He was convicted of “propaganda against the system”, sentenced to six years in jail, banned from directing or writing films and blocked from leaving the country.

    But he served only two months in jail in 2010, and was subsequently living on conditional release that could be revoked at any time.

    Panahi was arrested again on July 11 after he went to the prosecutor’s office to follow up on the situation of Rasoulof.

    The arrests come after Panahi and Rasoulof denounced in May the arrests of several colleagues in their homeland in an open letter.

    Series of arrests

    Despite the political pressures, Iran has a thriving film industry and the country’s products regularly win awards at major international festivals.

    Panahi’s detention has sparked condemnation from fellow filmmakers.

    Cannes film festival organisers said they “strongly condemn” the arrests as well as “the wave of repression evidently under way in Iran against its artists”.

    The Venice film festival called for the “immediate release” of the directors, while the Berlin film festival said it was “dismayed and outraged” at the arrest.

    France’s foreign ministry on Friday expressed concern at the “arbitrary” arrests of the filmmakers, citing a “worrying deterioration in the situation of artists in Iran”.

    Iran has in recent weeks arrested several leading figures, including reformist politician Mostafa Tajzadeh who was detained on July 8.

    Tajzadeh “is currently in pre-trial detention in Evin” prison and “his accusation is gathering and collusion with the intention of acting against the country’s security and propaganda against the system,” Setayeshi said on Tuesday.

    The politician, who last year made an unsuccessful bid for the presidency, was arrested in 2009 during protests disputing the re-election of former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

    Tajzadeh, who had long campaigned for democratic and “structural changes” in the Islamic republic was convicted in 2010 on charges of harming national security and propaganda against the state before being released in 2016 after serving his sentence.

    He had served as deputy interior minister during the 1997-2005 tenure of reformist former president Mohammad Khatami.

  • Iranian filmmaker Asghar Farhadi returns with another winner

    Express News Service

    Should a man be accorded celebrity status for a basic act of courtesy? Should he be cancelled for his minor miscalculations of the past when this present good deed has the potential to redeem him? These are just two of the many questions posed by Iranian filmmaker Asghar Farhadi’s latest feature, A Hero. One can’t help but think of the helpless bill poster Antonio Ricci from Vittorio De Sica’s Bicycle Thieves while looking at the desperate debtor in A Hero.

    The main character, Rahim Soltani (Amir Jadidi), loses something that doesn’t belong to him and, in the process, loses his dignity when the opposite was supposed to happen. He regains it briefly before losing it again. Farhadi puts Rahim through the wringer until he reaches a breaking point and makes things worse than they already were. 

    A Hero can be seen as a spiritual sequel to Farhadi’s About Elly, considering how the disappearance of a woman triggers the events in both films. It provokes a character and morality study and invites you to put yourself in Rahim’s shoes and imagine how you would react in the same circumstances. Unlike in About Elly, this woman is not one of the main characters.

    But her single scene appearance becomes a catalyst for a chain of events that turns into a litmus test for several of the film’s characters. It’s not just Rahim who is affected here. When his stuttering son, his doting girlfriend, and a large community becomes involved in turning Rahim’s life around, the negative impact created by an act of carelessness has far-reaching consequences. 

    A Hero arrives at a time when unchecked cancel culture is becoming the order of the day. And Farhadi makes social media a participant in Rahim’s ‘trial’ by individuals who suspect his motives. (It should be noted that a student of Farhadi has accused him of plagiarising the core idea of A Hero from her documentary All Winners, All Losers.

    If true, the irony is amusing.) Farhadi is careful not to get too attached to his characters, and it seems he doesn’t want us to either. He throws multiple perspectives at us. He presents evaluations of Rahim by other characters while he is in their presence. We can only judge Rahim by the look on his face, which is marked occasionally by innocence or indecisiveness. 

    Every character around Rahim gives us their version of what he did or what they think he did, and Farhadi leaves us with the challenge of making our own conclusion after listening to each. But it’s not easy to reach a verdict even after sifting through the story’s thick conundrums and intense confrontations. We wait for Farhadi to reach his own conclusion so that we can later reflect, in peace, on the way he chose to end his film. And what an ending it is! A Hero has the most memorable finale that I have seen since Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman.

    Through simple composition, Farhadi shows the present and future simultaneously. He holds on to the frame for a good while, letting us absorb the lingering bittersweetness. Aside from the ending, I found myself strongly affected by two other moments in A Hero: Rahim’s son offering his meagre pocket money to save his father and a benevolent taxi driver offering to help out the latter after learning that they share a similar history. 

    A Hero finds Farhadi at his best since 2016’s The Salesman. Every great film of his is an immensely gratifying, rejuvenating experience for film buffs looking to cleanse their palates after being on a diet of mediocre/terrible movies. And this rejuvenation process is kickstarted by our brain synapses getting fired up by the numerous questions his films ask. 

    Multiple places in A Hero made my mind wander in different directions but not in a way that took me out of the film. Farhadi’s films can do that to you—making you think so many things simultaneously without losing focus on what’s happening on the screen at any given moment.