Australia’s Sharmill Films has acquired distribution rights to Mohammad Rasoulof’s The Seed Of The Sacred Fig from Films Boutique. The feature scooped two awards at Cannes over the weekend.
The distributor will mount a theatrical release for the Iranian film in Australia and New Zealand. No release date has yet been scheduled but it will be submitted to key festivals in the territories ahead of a national release.
Sharmill picked up the rights before it received its world premiere in Cannes on Friday (May 24), after one of the first buyer screenings for the feature.
The Seed Of The Sacred Fig...
The distributor will mount a theatrical release for the Iranian film in Australia and New Zealand. No release date has yet been scheduled but it will be submitted to key festivals in the territories ahead of a national release.
Sharmill picked up the rights before it received its world premiere in Cannes on Friday (May 24), after one of the first buyer screenings for the feature.
The Seed Of The Sacred Fig...
- 5/28/2024
- ScreenDaily
Cannes awards have become hugely influential in subsequent awards races, especially the Oscars. The top honor, the Palme d’Or, confers prestige and a stamp of approval — this year from the Competition jury led by multi hyphenate Greta Gerwig — that awards voters take seriously.
Palme winners “Parasite,” “Triangle of Sadness,” and “Anatomy of a Fall” were all Best Picture Oscar contenders and won Oscars. And they were all picked up by specialty distributor Neon before they won their Cannes prize. Neon did not break its streak. It acquired two eventual prize-winners before the closing ceremony: Sean Baker’s Palme d’Or winner “Anora,” the first American film to win the prize since Terence Malick’s “Tree of Life” in 2011, and Iranian dissident filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof’s “The Seed of the Sacred Fig,” which took home a special award.
Thus “Anora,” from veteran indie filmmaker Baker (Cannes entry “The Florida Project...
Palme winners “Parasite,” “Triangle of Sadness,” and “Anatomy of a Fall” were all Best Picture Oscar contenders and won Oscars. And they were all picked up by specialty distributor Neon before they won their Cannes prize. Neon did not break its streak. It acquired two eventual prize-winners before the closing ceremony: Sean Baker’s Palme d’Or winner “Anora,” the first American film to win the prize since Terence Malick’s “Tree of Life” in 2011, and Iranian dissident filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof’s “The Seed of the Sacred Fig,” which took home a special award.
Thus “Anora,” from veteran indie filmmaker Baker (Cannes entry “The Florida Project...
- 5/26/2024
- by Anne Thompson
- Indiewire
Filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof said his decision to flee Iran on foot this month was necessary with the release of his new film “The Seed of the Sacred Fig” imminent, and he knew while making the movie that new charges would likely br brought against him.
“There was tremendous pressure on my shoulders. I kept thinking, well if I’m arrested while making the film, I’ll spend at least five years in prison. And then obviously, I knew this film would lead to other charges against me,” he told reporters during a press conference at Cannes on Saturday.
Because of that pressure, Rasoulof asked industry colleagues in other countries if they would carry on work on the film if he were arrested before he could leave. He made the decision to go after he learned that Iran’s secret police planned to target others who worked on the movie, too.
“There was tremendous pressure on my shoulders. I kept thinking, well if I’m arrested while making the film, I’ll spend at least five years in prison. And then obviously, I knew this film would lead to other charges against me,” he told reporters during a press conference at Cannes on Saturday.
Because of that pressure, Rasoulof asked industry colleagues in other countries if they would carry on work on the film if he were arrested before he could leave. He made the decision to go after he learned that Iran’s secret police planned to target others who worked on the movie, too.
- 5/25/2024
- by Stephanie Kaloi
- The Wrap
The Seed of the Sacred Fig, the new film from Iranian dissident director Mohammad Rasoulof, may or may not be honored tonight when the Cannes jury hands out its awards. But at the press conference for the film on Saturday, Rasoulof displayed his own heroism.
The director used his press conference to call out Iran’s authoritarian regime and to rally his fellow filmmakers to resist.
“My only message to Iranian cinema is don’t be afraid of intimidation and censorship in Iran,” said Rasoulof. “[The regime is] afraid. They’re afraid, and they want us to feel afraid; they want to discourage us. But don’t let yourself be intimidated … but don’t fear the authorities. You have to believe in your liberty. We have to fight for a dignified life.”
Rasoulof embodies this fight. The director fled Iran by foot a few weeks ago, escaping after the regime sentenced him to 8 years in prison.
The director used his press conference to call out Iran’s authoritarian regime and to rally his fellow filmmakers to resist.
“My only message to Iranian cinema is don’t be afraid of intimidation and censorship in Iran,” said Rasoulof. “[The regime is] afraid. They’re afraid, and they want us to feel afraid; they want to discourage us. But don’t let yourself be intimidated … but don’t fear the authorities. You have to believe in your liberty. We have to fight for a dignified life.”
Rasoulof embodies this fight. The director fled Iran by foot a few weeks ago, escaping after the regime sentenced him to 8 years in prison.
- 5/25/2024
- by Scott Roxborough
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Mohammad Rasoulof reflected on his decision to flee Iran at the Cannes Film Festival press conference for his latest film, “The Seed of the Sacred Fig,” on Saturday.
Rasoulof received news of the charges against him in the final weeks of shooting, but decided to risk arrest and finish the film before leaving the country. “Obviously, there was tremendous pressure on my shoulders,” Rasoulof said of the decision. “I kept thinking, well if I’m arrested while making the film, I’ll spend at least five years in prison. And then obviously, I knew this film would lead to other charges against me.”
He said he “counted on the slow pace of the legal administration” in order to wrap the project, and contacted his colleagues abroad to make sure they could bring the film to the finish line in the event of his arrest. Then, he was made aware that...
Rasoulof received news of the charges against him in the final weeks of shooting, but decided to risk arrest and finish the film before leaving the country. “Obviously, there was tremendous pressure on my shoulders,” Rasoulof said of the decision. “I kept thinking, well if I’m arrested while making the film, I’ll spend at least five years in prison. And then obviously, I knew this film would lead to other charges against me.”
He said he “counted on the slow pace of the legal administration” in order to wrap the project, and contacted his colleagues abroad to make sure they could bring the film to the finish line in the event of his arrest. Then, he was made aware that...
- 5/25/2024
- by Ellise Shafer
- Variety Film + TV
Mohammad Rasoulof’s “The Seed of the Sacred Fig” has a lot going for it on the way to a potential Palme d’Or win: strong reviews, an anguished political call-out against Iranian oppression, and Rasoulof’s own status as an exile who just fled his home country and was finally able to attend Cannes after all. (Read our interview with the director here.)
On the steps of the Palais for Friday’s premiere, Rasoulof held up photos of two of the actors — Misagh Zare and Soheila Golestani – banned from leaving Iran to attend the festival. He’s already shared how the Islamic Republic has been pressuring his crew into convincing Cannes to drop the film, which charts the breakdown of a family after a Revolutionary Court judge’s gun goes missing, from its lineup. This is Rasoulof’s first time in competition. He previously won prizes in Un Certain...
On the steps of the Palais for Friday’s premiere, Rasoulof held up photos of two of the actors — Misagh Zare and Soheila Golestani – banned from leaving Iran to attend the festival. He’s already shared how the Islamic Republic has been pressuring his crew into convincing Cannes to drop the film, which charts the breakdown of a family after a Revolutionary Court judge’s gun goes missing, from its lineup. This is Rasoulof’s first time in competition. He previously won prizes in Un Certain...
- 5/24/2024
- by Ryan Lattanzio
- Indiewire
“The Seed of the Sacred Fig,” Mohammad Rasoulof’s latest film that he received an eight-year prison sentence from Iranian authorities for making, earned a rapturous 12-minute standing ovation at its Cannes Film Festival premiere on Friday. Rasoulof risked his life by appearing at the premiere as he fled Iran for Europe on May 13 to avoid going to prison.
There was undeniable applause as the film’s credits began to roll (though it is Variety‘s policy to begin timing the standing ovation once the house lights come up), with Rasoulof getting teary and waving enthusiastically to the balcony. Ali Abbasi, the director of fellow competition title “The Apprentice,” stood next to Rasoulof and encouraged the crowd to keep clapping — not that they needed it, as their cheers just seemed to get louder and louder. There was even a sign in the audience reading “Femme! Vie! Liberté!” (“Woman! Life! Freedom!
There was undeniable applause as the film’s credits began to roll (though it is Variety‘s policy to begin timing the standing ovation once the house lights come up), with Rasoulof getting teary and waving enthusiastically to the balcony. Ali Abbasi, the director of fellow competition title “The Apprentice,” stood next to Rasoulof and encouraged the crowd to keep clapping — not that they needed it, as their cheers just seemed to get louder and louder. There was even a sign in the audience reading “Femme! Vie! Liberté!” (“Woman! Life! Freedom!
- 5/24/2024
- by Ramin Setoodeh and Ellise Shafer
- Variety Film + TV
The exiled director’s story of officialdom’s misogyny and theocracy in his home country may be flawed, but its importance is beyond doubt
Mohammad Rasoulof is a fugitive Iranian director and dissident wanted by the police in his own country, where he has received a long prison sentence and flogging. Now he has come to Cannes with a brazen and startling picture which, though flawed, does justice to the extraordinary and scarcely believable drama of his own situation and the agony of his homeland.
It’s a movie about Iranian officialdom’s misogyny and theocracy, and sets out to intuit and externalise the inner anguish and psychodrama of its dissenting citizens – in a country where women can be judicially bullied and beaten for refusing to wear the hijab.
The Seed of the Sacred Fig begins as a downbeat political and domestic drama in the familiar style of Iranian cinema,...
Mohammad Rasoulof is a fugitive Iranian director and dissident wanted by the police in his own country, where he has received a long prison sentence and flogging. Now he has come to Cannes with a brazen and startling picture which, though flawed, does justice to the extraordinary and scarcely believable drama of his own situation and the agony of his homeland.
It’s a movie about Iranian officialdom’s misogyny and theocracy, and sets out to intuit and externalise the inner anguish and psychodrama of its dissenting citizens – in a country where women can be judicially bullied and beaten for refusing to wear the hijab.
The Seed of the Sacred Fig begins as a downbeat political and domestic drama in the familiar style of Iranian cinema,...
- 5/24/2024
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
For more than two decades, Iman (Misagh Zare) has functioned as a civil servant, doing work that his kids — who represent Iran’s younger generation — would be ashamed of. Better to keep them in the dark. At last, for his loyalty, Iman has been given a promotion, not to judge (the job he wants) but to inspector (a job no one wants). Inspectors are the goons who interrogate students his daughters’ age when they’re arrested for protesting, the ones who sign off on death sentences for alleged dissidents. Iman doesn’t just work for the Iranian regime; he is the regime.
With livid, thinking-person’s thriller “The Seed of the Sacred Fig,” director Mohammad Rasoulof responds to his own imprisonment in 2022 by examining Iranian tensions within the context of a well-placed Tehran family. For most of this slow-boiling nearly-three-hour movie, the main character is not Iman but his submissive,...
With livid, thinking-person’s thriller “The Seed of the Sacred Fig,” director Mohammad Rasoulof responds to his own imprisonment in 2022 by examining Iranian tensions within the context of a well-placed Tehran family. For most of this slow-boiling nearly-three-hour movie, the main character is not Iman but his submissive,...
- 5/24/2024
- by Peter Debruge
- Variety Film + TV
Woman, life, freedom. Down with theocracy! The slogans shouted in the bloody streets of Tehran over the past year echo through The Seed of the Sacred Fig, Mohammad Rasoulof’s long, heartfelt story of an Iranian family that starts to tear at the seams when Iman’s two daughters are told what he really does at the office.
“Do you know your father signs hundreds of death warrants every day?” shouts a young man to the girls a week later, when he is recognized in a remote roadside grocery store. By that stage, everyone knows what Iman (Missagh Zare) does at the office; his name and address are posted on the internet by dissidents. Iman seemed like a mild-mannered man when he was first introduced, but now those liberal thugs are coming for him. A man has to act. A man has to protect his family.
Rasoulof has called up...
“Do you know your father signs hundreds of death warrants every day?” shouts a young man to the girls a week later, when he is recognized in a remote roadside grocery store. By that stage, everyone knows what Iman (Missagh Zare) does at the office; his name and address are posted on the internet by dissidents. Iman seemed like a mild-mannered man when he was first introduced, but now those liberal thugs are coming for him. A man has to act. A man has to protect his family.
Rasoulof has called up...
- 5/24/2024
- by Stephanie Bunbury
- Deadline Film + TV
“The Seed of the Sacred Fig” is an anguished cry from the heart of Mohammad Rasoulof, the Iranian filmmaker who just fled his home country for Europe after an eight-year prison sentence from the Islamic Republic. This is not the first brush with theocratic law for the dissident director, who’s been working steadily out of Iran for two decades.
So while Iran will never, ever submit his deeply unsettling latest masterwork for the Best International Feature Oscar — often the only harbinger of anti-establishment Middle Eastern films making their way to the U.S. — this searing domestic thriller deserves the widest audience possible. With the brutal 2022 killing of Mahsa Amini by government hands as his launching point, Rasoulof crafts an extraordinarily gripping allegory about the corrupting costs of power and the suppression of women under a religious patriarchy that crushes the very people it claims to protect.
“Sacred Fig” arose...
So while Iran will never, ever submit his deeply unsettling latest masterwork for the Best International Feature Oscar — often the only harbinger of anti-establishment Middle Eastern films making their way to the U.S. — this searing domestic thriller deserves the widest audience possible. With the brutal 2022 killing of Mahsa Amini by government hands as his launching point, Rasoulof crafts an extraordinarily gripping allegory about the corrupting costs of power and the suppression of women under a religious patriarchy that crushes the very people it claims to protect.
“Sacred Fig” arose...
- 5/24/2024
- by Ryan Lattanzio
- Indiewire
Out of all the major filmmakers to emerge from Iran over the past decades, Mohammad Rasoulof has certainly grown into the most overtly political. His finely crafted, hard-hitting dramas, including the superb 2020 Berlin Golden Bear Winner There Is No Evil, make no qualms about tackling his country’s oppressive regime and religious theocracy head-on, pulling few punches in their depictions of a nation under siege.
This clearly explains why the director has been targeted by the Iranian authorities since 2010, when he was first arrested along with Jafar Panahi for shooting a movie in secret. After receiving a six-year prison sentence, he eventually got out on bail — only to be officially banned from leaving the country in 2017. He was arrested again in 2022, spent months in Tehran’s notorious Evin Prison, received an eight-year sentence in 2024 and finally decided to flee the country earlier this month, arriving just in time to premiere his latest film in Cannes.
This clearly explains why the director has been targeted by the Iranian authorities since 2010, when he was first arrested along with Jafar Panahi for shooting a movie in secret. After receiving a six-year prison sentence, he eventually got out on bail — only to be officially banned from leaving the country in 2017. He was arrested again in 2022, spent months in Tehran’s notorious Evin Prison, received an eight-year sentence in 2024 and finally decided to flee the country earlier this month, arriving just in time to premiere his latest film in Cannes.
- 5/24/2024
- by Jordan Mintzer
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Mohammad Rasoulof has arrived. The dissident Iranian director is at the Cannes Film Festival to present his new film, The Seed of the Sacred Fig, in competition, just weeks after he dramatically escaped Iran on foot, fleeing an eight-year prison sentence.
Details of the director’s harrowing escape were made public last week after he was safely away, ensconced in an undisclosed location in Germany. He made the decision to leave, to abandon his homeland and walk across the mountainous borderland after the authorities sentenced him to a lengthy prison term.
His sentence also included a fine, the confiscation of property, and a flogging as punishment for bottles of wine the police discovered during a raid on his apartment.
Rasoulof had been arrested and imprisoned in Tehran’s notorious Evin jail in July 2022 for signing a petition calling on security forces to “Lay Down Your Arms” and exercise restraint in response to street protests.
Details of the director’s harrowing escape were made public last week after he was safely away, ensconced in an undisclosed location in Germany. He made the decision to leave, to abandon his homeland and walk across the mountainous borderland after the authorities sentenced him to a lengthy prison term.
His sentence also included a fine, the confiscation of property, and a flogging as punishment for bottles of wine the police discovered during a raid on his apartment.
Rasoulof had been arrested and imprisoned in Tehran’s notorious Evin jail in July 2022 for signing a petition calling on security forces to “Lay Down Your Arms” and exercise restraint in response to street protests.
- 5/24/2024
- by Scott Roxborough
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
After a perilous 28-day journey fleeing Iran and setting foot in Germany, Mohammad Rasoulof has finally made it to Cannes, safe for now and cautiously eager for the premiere of his fourth Cannes feature, “The Seed of the Sacred Fig,” announced by the festival a month ago as a late addition to the Competition.
The last images he takes away from his home — after just having two hours to make the monumental decision whether to be re-incarcerated for a harsh sentence that might still be extended, or to join the constellation of Iranian artists in potentially permanent exile — are the plants and flowers in his apartment, which he worried would have no caretaker. There was also a certain imposing mountain that he can view from his window. It’s there he can see the wall of Evin Prison, where he was last incarcerated in 2022 after speaking out against the government...
The last images he takes away from his home — after just having two hours to make the monumental decision whether to be re-incarcerated for a harsh sentence that might still be extended, or to join the constellation of Iranian artists in potentially permanent exile — are the plants and flowers in his apartment, which he worried would have no caretaker. There was also a certain imposing mountain that he can view from his window. It’s there he can see the wall of Evin Prison, where he was last incarcerated in 2022 after speaking out against the government...
- 5/23/2024
- by Ritesh Mehta
- Indiewire
In a surprising announcement, 51-year-old Iranian film director Mohammad Rasoulof will attend the premiere of “The Seed of the Sacred Fig” on Friday. The movie has one of the final competition slots and, unless it is an absolute dud, is a guarantee for one of the top awards considering the political statement it makes. As a direct result of making the movie, Rasoulof was sentenced to eight years in prison, had his property removed, and was due to receive a flogging. He fled the country on foot and is now somewhere in Europe.
Rasoulof, whose previous work includes “Manuscripts Don’t Burn,” “A Man of Integrity,” which won the top prize at Cannes’s Un Certain Regard sidebar, and “There Is No Evil,” which won the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival. All of his films are critical of contemporary Iranian society, with “There Is No Evil,” about capital punishment,...
Rasoulof, whose previous work includes “Manuscripts Don’t Burn,” “A Man of Integrity,” which won the top prize at Cannes’s Un Certain Regard sidebar, and “There Is No Evil,” which won the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival. All of his films are critical of contemporary Iranian society, with “There Is No Evil,” about capital punishment,...
- 5/22/2024
- by Jordan Hoffman
- Gold Derby
“Woman Life Freedom” is making its debut in Cannes, which is bustling with activity thanks to the Cannes Film Festival 2024. The photo exhibition created by Fedra Fateh aims to celebrate the creativity and courage of 15 Iranian artists.
They include artists who have faced censorship, bans, and imprisonment. The only fault of these people – the exhibition reminds us – was to fight for freedom of expression and equality.
Born in Iran after the murder of Mahsa Amini by the morality police, the Women Life Freedom movement bears witness to the indomitable spirit of Iranian women. Each participating artist has faced various forms of repression for daring to demand freedom and dignity for the Iranian people.
“The Woman Life Freedom movement emerged from a specific time and place, yet its message is timeless and universal,” says Fateh. “The struggle for women’s rights and human rights impacts each one of us. Only if...
They include artists who have faced censorship, bans, and imprisonment. The only fault of these people – the exhibition reminds us – was to fight for freedom of expression and equality.
Born in Iran after the murder of Mahsa Amini by the morality police, the Women Life Freedom movement bears witness to the indomitable spirit of Iranian women. Each participating artist has faced various forms of repression for daring to demand freedom and dignity for the Iranian people.
“The Woman Life Freedom movement emerged from a specific time and place, yet its message is timeless and universal,” says Fateh. “The struggle for women’s rights and human rights impacts each one of us. Only if...
- 5/19/2024
- by Chiara Scipiotti
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
The idea of a radiograph - showing the inside of something that reflects what has happened on the outside - is a strong metaphor Firouzeh Khosrovani's documentary, which considers the sociopolitical changes in Iran through the microcosm of her own family. The director offers a creative approach to the subject, using archive footage, home video and family photos, overlaid with her own observations (voiced via narration by editor Farahnaz Sharif) and imagined re-enacted conversations between her parents (played by Soheila Golestani and Christophe Rezai) - a slightly stilted device at first but one which, as the film progresses, becomes increasingly evocative as we become more accustomed to it.
Firouzeh's parents represent two very different faces of Iran. Her mother Tayi - who the director notes married her radiographer father's photograph in proxy fashion while he was away studying in Switzerland - is a devout Muslim. Her father, Hossein, meanwhile,...
Firouzeh's parents represent two very different faces of Iran. Her mother Tayi - who the director notes married her radiographer father's photograph in proxy fashion while he was away studying in Switzerland - is a devout Muslim. Her father, Hossein, meanwhile,...
- 4/22/2021
- by Amber Wilkinson
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
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