Cairo, Egypt (CNN) – Iran has banned a film festival after a promotional poster showed an actress not wearing the hijab, the head covering worn by many Muslim women, state news agency IRNA reported Saturday.
The agency said that the 13th session of the Iranian Short Film Society Festival was banned after Iran’s Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance deemed the poster inappropriate.
“The Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance personally issued an order banning the 13th session of the Iranian Short Film Society Film Festival, after using a picture of a woman without a veil on its poster in violation of the law,” said a statement from the Ministry of Culture and Guidance published by the IRNA news agency.
During mass protests across Iran last year, Iranian women burned headscarves and cut their hair in protest against the mandatory dress code. The protests erupted in the wake of the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who died after being arrested by Iran’s morality police for not wearing a headscarf properly, according to government-imposed standards.
The image, which caused the festival to be banned, is a promotional poster for the 1982 film “The Death of Yazdegerd” starring Suzanne Taslemi, according to Agence France-Presse.
A video clip circulated on pro-government channels showed a poster of a woman not wearing a headscarf at a party. It is not clear when and where the ceremony took place.
“This image relates to a scene…in a film that was made before the veil was compulsory. Given the current sensitivities about removing the veil, publishing the poster is contrary to social interests,” said IRNA, quoting the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance’s statement.
