Jafar Panahi is getting used to it. the “prominent Iranian dissident author”as described Variety, accustomed to clashes with the authorities for twenty years, was once again arrested on Monday in Tehran. He was going to the prosecutor’s office to hear from Mohammad Rasoulof, a colleague who was arrested last week.
The regime accuses the two men, as well as Mostafa Al-Ahmad, another imprisoned director, of having incited unrest and of having “disturbed the psychological safety of society” according to IRNA, the official agency of the Islamic Republic of Iran, quoted by the Guardian. Concretely, Mr. Panahi signed with 70 other filmmakers an open letter denouncing the “ corruption, theft, inefficiency and repression” of the regime after the death of more than forty people in the collapse of a building in Abadan.
“Panahi has faced legal issues throughout his career and is currently prohibited from leaving or making films outside of Iran”recalls the site Indiewire. Le Middle East Eye specifies that his international aura, acquired among other things thanks to his Golden Lion in Venice for the film ” The circle “ in 2000, did not prevent him from being sentenced in 2010 for “propaganda against the system” after showing his support for protests against the government.
Golden Bear in Berlin in 2015
The situation is similar for Mr. Rasoulof. The two directors had been arrested for filming without a license in 2011, each receiving a six-year prison sentence, reduced for Rasoulof and transformed into house arrest for Panahi.
The Cannes festival has joined the “concert of calls for their release”note it Hollywood Reporter. Mr. Panahi was unable to travel to the south of France in 2018 when his film “Three Faces” was presented at the festival. He received the screenplay award. “The Cannes Film Festival strongly condemns these arrests as well as the wave of repression, which, obviously, is currently sweeping Iran over its artists”said a statement, also reaffirming the support of the organizers to “all those who, throughout the world, are subjected to violence and repression”.
The time notes the reaction of the Berlin festival where “the eminent director” 62-year-old has regularly shone. In 2015, the jury awarded the Golden Bear to “Taxi Tehran”. “Parde” had won the Silver Bear for screenplay in 2013 and in 2006, it is ” Off-side ” who had distinguished himself with the Silver Bear. The organizers say “dismayed” et “indignant” by his arrest.
Variety points out that “the climate had improved” between the filmmaker and the regime in 2014 with progressive President Hassan Rouhani, but the coming to power in August 2021 of Ebrahim Raisi, follower of a “harder line” according to the weekly, seems to correspond to “a conservative backlash”.