Ahead of Cannes, Iran sentences filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof to 8 years in prison and flogging

A file photo of Iranian film director Mohammad Rasoulof posing at an older edition of the Cannes Film Festival. (Photo: Reuters)

The award-winning Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof has been sentenced to eight years in prison and lashings just ahead of his planned trip to the 77th Cannes Film Festival this month, his lawyer told The Associated Press Thursday. Rasoulof's latest feature “The Seed of the Sacred Fig” is nominated in main competition, for Palme d'Or, at the festival, and is competing against bigwigs like Francis Ford Coppola, David Cronenberg, Paolo Sorrentino, Paul Schrader, Sean Baker, Jia Zhang-Ke, among others, including India's Payal Kapadia with her debut feature All We Imagine As Light.

The story of The Seed of the Sacred Fig, centres on an investigating judge in the Revolutionary Court in Tehran (where Rasoulof had to face trials, too), who grapples with mistrust and paranoia amid intensifying nationwide political protests.

Earlier this month, Iran had pressured the award-winning Rasoulof to pull his new film ‘Seed of the Sacred Fig’ from Cannes Film Festival and slapped travel ban on the film’s actors.

In a post on X, the filmmaker’s lawyer Babak Paknia wrote, reported the Variety magazine, that Iran's Islamic Revolution Court sentenced Rasoulof to eight years of imprisonment, flogging, a fine and confiscation of property. The judgment was confirmed in a Court of Appeal and the case has now been sent for enforcement, Paknia wrote, adding, the main reason for issuing the sentence were Rasoulof’s public statements and making films and documentaries, which in the court’s opinion, are “examples of collusion with the intention of committing a crime against the country’s security.”

Rasoulof, 51, known for his film There Is No Evil, has become the latest artist targeted in a widening crackdown on all dissent in the Islamic Republic following years of mass protests, including over the 2022 death of Mahsa Amini.

Rasoulof was invited to serve on the jury last year but was unable to attend due to Iran’s travel embargo on him. The “There Is No Evil” filmmaker was banned from leaving Iran after being arrested in July 2022 for posting statements criticising government-sanctioned violence against protesters. Rasoulof was later temporarily released in February 2023 due to ongoing health concerns.

"This judgment is issued due to Mr. Rasoulof signing statements in support of the Iranian people," his lawyer Babak Paknia told the AP. He said that those statements, along with his tweets and further social activities, were found to be instances of 'action against national security'. The director also faces lashings, fines and asset seizures, his lawyer said.

'There Is No Evil', which tells four stories loosely connected to the use of the death penalty in Iran, won the Golden Bear prize at Berlin in 2020. Shortly after the award, he was sentenced to a year in prison for three films he made that authorities found to be 'propaganda against the system'. He has faced repeated prison sentences and film bans in his native Iran, which has long rallied against Western-embraced artists as a part of a 'soft war' against its policies.

Fellow filmmaker Saeed Roustayi and his producer similarly faced legal action last year after traveling to Cannes to show Leila's Brothers.

Iranian filmmakers Jafar Panahi and Mostafa al-Ahmad were also jailed during this wave of crackdowns against dissenting speech. Panahi was released from prison in March 2023 after going on hunger strike. Panahi's film No Bears (2022) was shot secretly in Iran, starring himself as a forbidden-to-leave director making a docudrama.

(With inputs from The Associated Press.)