Iranian Oscar nominee Mohammad Rasoulof: ‘After my arrest, I told myself: don’t hold back’
His new film, The Seed of the Sacred Fig, is up for an Academy award – but the film-maker had to direct it from his sofa. Even under sentence of arrest and flogging, he won’t be silenced, he says
When mass protests erupted in Iran after the death in custody of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who had been detained for not properly wearing her hijab, Mohammad Rasoulof was in jail. By night, out of earshot of the guards, the Iranian director – incarcerated for being critical of the government – and his fellow political prisoners gathered to discuss the turmoil unfolding outside. As the protests intensified and the number of detainees grew, a general pardon was issued and Rasoulof was released.
His time in jail helped inspire his new film: a drama about a paranoid state investigator who turns on his own family. Rasoulof had been mulling over versions of it for 15 years, fearing it was “too ambitious”. Free from prison, he set to work – but this time, in complete secret. He directed The Seed of the Sacred Fig almost entirely from his own sofa, using a broadband connection registered under someone else’s name.
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