A court in Tehran has sentenced the famous Iranian director, Saeed Rostaei, to six months in prison for screening his film “Laila’s Brothers” at the Cannes Film Festival in 2022, according to an Iranian reformist newspaper reported on Tuesday.
And “Laila’s Brothers” is a feature film about a poor family on the verge of disintegration in Iran, which is mired in a major economic crisis.
The film has been banned in Iran since its release last year, as the authorities consider it “a breach of the rules by participating without permission (…) in the (festivals) Cannes and then Munich.”
The reformist Etemad newspaper reported on its website, “The Revolutionary Court in Tehran has sentenced the director of Leila Saeed Rostaei’s Brothers movie and its producer, Javad Nowruz Beki, to six months in prison.”
The court convicted them of “contributing to the propaganda of the opposition against the Islamic regime” in Iran.
According to “Etimad”, the court decided that the two filmmakers should serve only five percent of the sentence issued against them, or about nine days, with “suspending the implementation of the remaining sentence for a period of five years.”
The newspaper added, “During the period of suspension of the sentence, the defendants must refrain from activities related to the crime committed and not communicate with people who are active in the field of cinema.”
The ruling is subject to appeal “within 20 days of its issuance,” according to the newspaper.
Saeed Rostaei, 34, became famous, especially after he directed in 2021 “Tehran Law”, a police film about drug trafficking and the authorities’ repression in this regard.
Rostaie won the International Federation of Film Press Jury Prize for his film “Leila’s Brothers” in May 2022.
