The Iranian authorities on Friday (7/8) arrested one of the most important directors in the country. Award-winning filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof was arrested along with his colleague Mostafa Aleahmad for participating in protests related to the collapse of a building in the southwest of the country in May, state news agency IRNA reported.
The Metropol building, under construction in Abadan, a major city in the southwestern province of Khuzestan, partially collapsed on a busy road.
The tragedy provoked several protests in the country of solidarity with the families of the victims and against the authorities, accused of corruption and incompetence.
During the demonstrations, Iranian police used tear gas, fired warning shots and announced arrests.
Many Iranians have called for those responsible for the tragedy to be brought to justice. Instead, the country’s police pursued those who protested.
Rasoulof and Aleahmad were arrested for “inciting riots and disturbing the psychological security of society,” according to IRNA. The Iranian producers of their films issued a warning, broadcast by US distributor Kino Lorber, that the two directors had been sent to detention in an unknown location.
Recognized all over the world for his artistic talent, Rasulof won the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival in 2020 for the film “Not bad”, but already at that moment he suffered the consequences of the country’s repression. , which did not allow him to travel to Germany to attend the event.
Rasulof’s passport was confiscated after the release of his previous film, “A Man of Integrity”, in 2017, screened at the Cannes Film Festival, where he was also awarded: he won the Un Certain Regard section.
He is also forbidden to make films, because he would use the cinema to make “propaganda against the system”.
“There Is No Evil” followed 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 given the answer in practice.
Source: Terra
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