“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
IMDb.com, Inc. takes no responsibility for the content or accuracy of the above news articles, Tweets, or blog posts. This content is published for the entertainment of our users only. The news articles, Tweets, and blog posts do not represent IMDb's opinions nor can we guarantee that the reporting therein is completely factual. Please visit the source responsible for the item in question to report any concerns you may have regarding content or accuracy.