Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof (“There is no evil”), who was recently released from prison on medical grounds, is facing new charges that could land him back in prison.
The director is accused by the Iranian authorities of having formed an illegal assembly and of colluding against national security, as well as insulting the regime’s leadership and spreading anti-state propaganda.
If found guilty by the Revolutionary Tribunal, Rasoulouf could face an additional eight-year prison sentence.
Officially, Rasoulof was arrested in July last year to serve a sentence initially handed down against him in 2011 and 2019, for allegedly spreading anti-state propaganda.
But her arrest came before the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old girl who was killed for violating the strict women’s dress code. The event sparked protests across the country, and in response, the Iranian government cracked down on protesters and cracked down on any criticism of the regime online.
Despite this, Rasoulof issued an appeal, broadcast on social media, asking the Iranian security forces to stop their violent attacks on protesters. This is what should be considered subversion.
Last Saturday (11/2), the director was released from prison on medical leave to undergo surgery. And on Monday (2/13) he received his release order, meaning he would not need to go back to prison to serve his original sentence.
However, with the emergence of these new charges, his freedom is once again compromised. “It all depends on how the court reacts to the new allegations,” Farzad Pak, Rasoulof’s friend and producer of “There Is No Evil,” told The Hollywood Reporter.
Rasoulof’s release came shortly after his colleague, Jafar Panahi (“Taxi Tehran”), was also released from prison after announcing he would go on hunger strike.
Both Panahi and Rasoulof were sentenced in 2011 to six years in prison and a 20-year film ban for their alleged dissemination of “anti-regime” propaganda.
Rasoulof’s sentence was later suspended and he was released on bail. But after touring to promote his film “A Man of Integro” (2017), which deals with corruption and injustice in Iran, and which won the Un Certain Regard award at the Cannes Film Festival, Rasoulof had his passport and was banned from leaving the country.
He filmed “Not Bad” in secret and smuggled the film out of the country. But since the Iranian authorities had forbidden him to participate in the Berlin Film Festival in 2020, it was his daughter, Baran Rasoulof, star of the feature film, who accepted the Golden Bear on her behalf.
Ironically, “There Is No Evil” told four stories that questioned the extent to which individual freedom could be expressed under a despotic regime and its seemingly inevitable threats. The Iranian “system” has basically provided the answer.
Watch the trailer for “There’s No Evil” below.
Source: Terra

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