The filmmaker and opponent Iranian Jafar Panahi, Golden Bear for Best Film at the 2015 Berlin Film Festival, was arrested on Monday July 11, 2022 in Tehran according to an Iranian news agency, bringing the number of directors arrested in the country to three in less than a week.
Aged 62, Jafar Panahi is one of the most awarded Iranian filmmakers. In particular, he had obtained the Screenplay Prize at Cannes in 2018 with Three Facesthree years after the Golden Bear in Berlin for Taxi Tehran.
The Iranian authorities had already arrested two filmmakers on Friday, Mohammad Rasoulof and Mostafa Aleahmad, accused of “disturbing public order”.
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Jafar Panahi, an artist dissident
“Jafar Panahi was arrested today (Monday) upon his arrival at the Tehran prosecutor’s office to follow up on the case of another director, Mohammad Rasoulof”, detained since Friday, according to the Mehr news agency.
“There is still no information on the reason for Panahi’s arrest, his connection to the Rasoulof case or to other people arrested last week,” she added.
A dissident artist, Mr. Panahi was sentenced in 2010 to six years in prison and a 20-year ban on directing or writing films, traveling or speaking in the media. However, he continued to work and live in Iran.
He had been convicted of “propaganda against the regime”, after having supported the 2009 protest movement against the re-election of the ultra-conservative Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as President of the Islamic Republic.
Two other directors already arrested on Friday
Mohammad Rasoulof, also awarded abroad, and Mostafa Aleahmad were arrested on Friday. They are accused of encouraging protests after the deadly collapse of a building in the south-west of the country in May, according to the official Irna news agency.
After the tragedy, a group of Iranian filmmakers led by Mohammad Rasoulof published an open letter at the end of May calling on the security forces “to lay down arms” in the face of anger « la corruption » et “incompetence” officials.
The directors Panahi and Rasoulof had also denounced in mid-May with other Iranian filmmakers and actors the arrest of several of their colleagues in Iran.
Repression and censorship constitute “a violation of freedom of expression” et “reduce the safety of directors to the bare minimum”, they denounced in an open letter.
The world of cinema protests
The organizers of the Berlinale film festival, which awarded Mohammad Rasoulof the supreme distinction in 2020, protested last week against the arrest of the filmmaker and his colleague, demanding the release of the two artists.
Mohammad Rasoulof, 50, won the Golden Bear in Berlin in 2020 for his film the devil does not exist but he could not go to Germany. His passport had been confiscated after his previous feature film in 2017, A man of integritypresented at Cannes, where it won the prize in the “Un Certain Regard” category.
In recent times, the Iranian authorities have carried out numerous arrests, including a figure of the reform movement Mostafa Tajzadeh, arrested on Friday on the charge of “activities against state security”.
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