2024-08-27 14:21:22
Germany will send The Seed of the Sacred Fig Tree, a new film by Iranian director Mohammad Rasulof, to the fight for the Oscar for the best foreign language film. He fled his native country this year, where he was sentenced to eight years in prison and flogging. Since then, he has been living in German exile, the DPA agency reported.
“We are extremely pleased that Mohammad Rasúlof has found safety in our country. And we are honored that he will represent Germany at the next Oscars,” said the jury.
Rasulof has faced persecution in Iran for the past 15 years or so, having been arrested and convicted several times for allegedly subverting the regime or threatening public order. At the same time, the Islamic Republic banned his artistic activity and confiscated his passport, which prevented him from traveling to international festivals repeatedly.
When the director criticized the regime several times in 2022, he was again taken away by the police and spent six months in Tehran’s infamous Evin Prison, where the regime holds political prisoners. After his liberation, he made a full-length allegorical drama in secret, which he called The Seed of the Sacred Fig Tree.
But he already knew when he was finishing it that he had been sentenced, this time to eight years in prison and flogging. This is why he emigrated this spring. He left Iran on foot, with no electronic devices through which the regime could track him. Including waiting near the border and hiding, the trip took him a total of 28 days, he told Deadline.com.
He presented the film at the festival in Cannes, France, where he subsequently received a special jury prize. “I came to the conclusion that the most important thing for me is to leave so that I can continue filming. I want to tell other stories and nothing will stop me from that,” the director explained in Cannes why he emigrated.
Mohammad Rasulof has faced persecution in Iran for the past 15 years or so. | Photo: Reuters
He chose Germany because he has been visiting the country since 2012 and his daughter is studying medicine in Hamburg. Still, he believes it’s not permanent. “When I crossed the border, I turned around, took one last look at my native country and said to myself that I will go back there. I think all the Iranians who had to leave because of the totalitarian regime have a suitcase ready at home and hope to things will improve one day,” added Rasúlof.
He shot the film illegally, without the regime’s consent, and instead of an official delegation with the actors, he brought only their portrait photos to Cannes. He earned several standing ovations at the festival.
Rasúlof’s tenth feature film tells the story of a family torn apart by the political situation in the country. The protagonist is a judge of the Tehran Revolutionary Court, whose gun mysteriously disappears at home. Because he suspects his own wife and daughters sympathizing with anti-government protesters of the theft, he implements drastic measures in the household. At the same time, the man, gradually falling into paranoia, begins to doubt the death sentences that he is supposed to hand out at the request of the regime without examining the evidence.
The film also contains real footage from the protests that gripped Iran after the death of a young woman of Kurdish origin, Mahsa Aminíová. She died in 2022 after the intervention of the morality police due to a poorly worn hijab, the Islamic headscarf that covers the hair.
In response, Iran experienced several months of protests, during which the armed forces killed more than 500 people and arrested almost 20,000 of them, Rádio Svobodná Evropa/Rádio Svoboda recalls.
Mohammad Rasulof is one of the most famous Iranian directors. | Photo: Reuters
The film The Seed of the Sacred Fig Tree will be released in Czech cinemas in October by the distribution company Film Europe. Already this Thursday, August 29, and again on Saturday, August 31, Prague’s Edison Filmhub cinema will screen it ahead of time as part of the Al Qamar Middle Eastern cinema festival.
According to the DPA agency, Mohammad Rasúlof belongs to the most famous Iranian directors. First, in 2017, his film Unyielding, which told the story of a man of firm moral principles facing corruption, was successful at the Canens festival. The film won in the competition category Un certain regard.
The director’s next work, entitled There is no evil among us, about the death penalty in Iran, was a German-Czech-Iranian co-production. This 2020 title won the main Golden Bear prize at the Berlinale festival.
The last time Germany won an Oscar was the year before last, when its representative, the remake of the anti-war classic Calm on the Western Front, received not only the statuette for the best foreign language film, but also three other Oscars, including prizes for the design, cinematography and music. The seed of the sacred fig tree could now be nominated by Germany because the Iranian director’s film was produced by a Hamburg company, financially supported by a German fund and has a German distributor, adds the DPA agency.
Oscar nominations will be announced in January, the awards should be handed out in March 2025. The Czech Republic has not yet chosen its representative.
Video: Mass protests in Iran: Death of young Mahsa was the last straw, says journalist Rahimi (28/09/2022)
Anti-government demonstrations in Iran were commented on in 2022 on DVtv by Fatima Rahimi, a journalist originally from Afghanistan. | Video: Michael Rozsypal