While working on his most recent film, the suspenseful political thriller The Seed of the Sacred Fig, Iranian filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof received the news that he had been condemned to eight years in prison. Rasoulof, a fervent opponent of Iran’s theocratic government, had to decide whether to attempt to leave the nation or risk harsh punishment.
I wouldn’t only lose this extremely productive and active time for making movies. In a Zoom interview from New York, Rasoulof stated through an interpreter, “I would also be changed into someone who has to play the role of the sacrificed artist, the victim of censorship.”
He didn’t want to play that part.
After a perilous voyage, Rasoulof fled Iran covertly on foot and sought safety in Germany. Far from a government that threatened to imprison him for openly opposing the socially repressive Islamic Republic, which has ruled Iran with an iron fist since the revolution against the shah in 1979, he now lives in exile in Europe. Both Rasoulof and the movie he shot in near-complete secrecy are able to move across the West.
The main character of The Seed of the Sacred Fig, which made its theatrical debut in the United States on Wednesday, is Iman, a middle-aged Revolutionary Court investigator who resides in Tehran with his loyal wife and kids. Iman is assigned to approve severe punishments for demonstrators demonstrating in the streets against the dictatorial government at the start of the movie. He is at odds with his two liberal-minded daughters and feels uneasy about the mandate. After his work-issued gun disappears, Iman becomes angry and paranoid.
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