American director Martin Scorsese supported a petition condemning the imprisonment of prominent Iranian director Saeed Rostaei for showing a film at the Cannes Film Festival.
Scorsese, the director of the Oscar-winning films “Taxi Driver” and “Goodfellas”, retweeted a campaign launched by his daughter Francesca this week after news broke of Rostaie’s prison sentence.
Scorsese wrote on “Instagram”: “Please sign this petition in order to seek justice for Saeed.”
Last Tuesday, Iranian media reported that Rostaei, 34, had been sentenced to six months in prison for showing his film “Laila’s Brothers” at the Cannes Festival last year.
The film, which tells the story of a family in Tehran facing economic hardship, was banned in Iran.
The reformist Iranian newspaper, Etemad, reported that Rostaei and the film’s producer, Javad Nowruz Beki, were convicted of “contributing to the opposition’s propaganda against the Islamic regime” in Iran.
The penalty includes a ban from work for five years.
According to Etemad newspaper, the director and producer will spend only nine days in prison, while the rest of the sentence will be “suspended for five years,” and the sentence is subject to appeal.
In her petition, actress and director Francesca Scorsese wrote: “We now have less than 20 days to help bring enough attention to appeal his sentence.”
She urged that the petition be signed so that Rostaie could “continue to be a force for good in the world”.
As of Friday morning, the number of signatures on the petition has approached 17,000 out of the 25,000 signatures set as a target.
The film “Leila’s Brothers” won the International Federation of Film Critics Award at the Cannes Festival last year.
Official Iranian media said the film “violated the rules by entering international film festivals without a license,” and the director refused to “correct” the situation at the request of the Ministry of Culture.
The organizers of the Cannes Festival this week denounced “a serious violation of the freedom of expression of Iranian artists, filmmakers, producers and technicians.”
Iran has always enjoyed a thriving film scene, with names like Jafar Panahi and Asghar Farhadi winning awards all over the world.
Rostaei has gained international acclaim since the release of his film Just 6.5, 2019, in which he explores the drug problem in Iran and the violent and fruitless police handling of the case.
(AFP)
