Iran Sentences Director to six Months After He Screened Film at Cannes

A outstanding Iranian movie director and an Iranian producer have been sentenced on Tuesday to 6 months in jail for creating the movie “Leila’s Brothers” and screening it on the Cannes Film Festival with out official approval, in line with the nation’s news media.

Saeed Roustaee, the movie’s director, and Javad Noruzbegi, who produced the movie with Roustaee, have been each sentenced to 6 months in jail by the Islamic Revolutionary Court in Tehran for “participating in the opposition’s propaganda against the Islamic regime,” in line with the conviction announcement made by the court docket and reported in Etemad, an Iranian reformist newspaper.

“The defendants aligned with the oppositional media, under the influence of propaganda, in line with the counter-revolutionary (anti-regime) forces,” the announcement learn. “With the aim of raising money and seeking fame,” it stated, they “prepared fodder and intensified the media battle against the religious authority.”

Roustaee and Noruzbegi will serve about 9 days of their sentence, with the rest suspended for 5 years, Etemad reported. During that interval, Roustaee and Noruzbegi will likely be required to finish a 24-hour course about “creating movies aligned with national interests and national morality” and chorus from associating with different people within the movie trade, in line with Etemad.

“Leila’s Brothers,” which tells the story of an Iranian household struggling to flee poverty in Tehran, was screened finally 12 months’s Cannes Film Festival, the place it received prime honors from the International Federation of Film Critics. Roustaee didn’t have permission from Iran’s Ministry of Culture to display screen the movie, and he stated it needed him to censor among the film’s most vital scenes.

“Roustaee’s sentence has concerned many in the Iranian cinema community,” stated an Iranian filmmaker who was granted anonymity as a result of he stated he was involved about his security. “We believe that this indicates that a new wave of limitations and restrictions has emerged.”

The Iranian authorities is probably going additional delicate to criticism and dissent due to the upcoming one-year anniversary of widespread antigovernment protests that erupted final September, stated Ray Takeyh, the Hasib J. Sabbagh senior fellow for Middle East research on the Council on Foreign Relations.

“The regime is watchful of what is happening and is determined to control the discourse that is taking place,” Takeyh stated.

Several outstanding figures in Iran’s movie trade have been imprisoned in recent times after operating afoul of presidency authorities.