Iranian director Mohammad Rasulof, winner of the Berlin Film Festival, was sentenced to eight years in prison, flogging, a fine and confiscation of property. This was reported by his lawyer Babak Paknia on the social network X, UNN reports.
Details
It is noted that the director's film Seeds of the Sacred Fig was selected to participate in the Cannes Film Festival.
The reason for the sentence was public statements and the creation of fiction and documentary films, which, in the court's opinion, were criminalized against Iran's security.
Earlier, the lawyer said that the film crew, actors and the director himself had been summoned for questioning and banned from leaving the country. They were accused of filming without the appropriate licenses and of the actresses wearing the hijab incorrectly.
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This sentence was the most severe of all those previously handed down against the director. He was first arrested in 2010 for filming without a permit. Initially, he was sentenced to six years in prison, but later the term was reduced to one year.
In 2017, after returning from abroad, he was banned from leaving the country. Rasulof was also taken into custody from 2022 to 2023 for comments condemning the government, but was released early due to health problems.
Context
Mohammad Rasulof is a winner and nominee of numerous film awards. In 2020, he won the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival for his work Evil Does Not Exist.