Iranian director banned from attending human rights festival

The Guardian - Mohammad Rasoulof, convicted of making anti-regime propaganda, is prevented from collecting award at German film festival

The recent election of Hassan Rouhani and the reopening of House of Cinema prompted speculation that Iran's film industry may be on the cusp of a progressive new era. Such optimism looks likely to be dampened, however, by the news that director Mohammad Rasoulof has been banned from leaving the country to receive a lifetime achievement award.

Rasoulof, one of Iran's most prominent film-maker, was sentenced with fellow director Jafar Panahi to five years in prison and a 20-year ban on film-making for alleged anti-regime propaganda in 2011. Now out on bail, he was booked to attend this month's Nuremburg International Human Rights film festival (NIHRFF) in Germany. Organisers were expecting Rasoulof to pick up his award in person and present his latest film, Manuscripts Don't Burn.

Screen Daily reports that Rasoulof's passport was confiscated by authorities upon his return to Tehran on September 19. The film-maker, who according to the report has been freely travelling between his homeland and Germany, is therefore unable to return to Europe as planned this weekend.

"We are very concerned for Mr Rasoulof," said festival director Andrea Kuhn in a statement. "We find it absolutely unacceptable that the Iranian authorities refuse to let him leave the country. This is a severe violation of freedom of expression and basic human rights. We ask for the immediate return of Mr Rasoulof's travel documents."

Rasoulof was also due to visit the Hamburg film festival on Tuesday and the Stockholm film festival in November. "It is unacceptable of the Iranian authorities to prohibit him from leaving the country and that he is being prevented from acting as a filmmaker," wrote Stockholm's director, Git Scheynius. "It is a violation of freedom of speech and basic human rights."

Rasoulof's latest film, Manuscripts Don't Burn, won the FIPRESCI Prize at this year's Cannes film festival, where it screened in the Un Certain Regard section. Shot covertly and based on real-life events, it focuses on a failed 1995 assassination plot by Iranian authorities against 21 writers and journalists. At the Toronto film festival, where it screened last month, Manuscripts Don't Burn was described as an "incendiary critique of the Iranian regime" and a "challenging gaze into the nature of evil and history as its eternal witness".

By Ben Child