IRANIAN FILMMAKER MOHAMMAD RASOULOF SENTENCED TO EIGHT YEARS IN PRISON AND FLOGGING, LAWYER SAYS

Iranian filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof has been sentenced to eight years in prison, according to his lawyer.

In a post on X, the filmmaker's lawyer Babak Paknia wrote that Iran's Islamic Revolution Court sentenced Rasoulof to eight years of imprisonment, flogging, a fine and confiscation of property. The judgment was confirmed in a Court of Appeal and the case has now been sent for enforcement, Paknia wrote.

The lawyer added that the main reason for issuing the sentence were Rasoulof's public statements and making films and documentaries, which in the court's opinion, are "examples of collusion with the intention of committing a crime against the country's security."

The news comes in the wake of Iranian authorities exerting heavy pressure on Rasoulof to pull his latest work "The Seed of the Sacred Fig" from the Cannes Film Festival by harassing the film's producers and actors were summoned for questioning and banned from leaving the country.

Paknia, who is a human rights lawyer, had written in a previous X post that several unspecified actors and producers on "Sacred Fig" were summoned and questioned by authorities. He added that Iran's authorities also pressured them to convince Rasoulof to withdraw the film from the festival.

Furthermore, "Some of the film's actors have been banned from leaving, and according to their statements, after several hours of interrogation, they were asked to ask the director to remove the film from the Cannes festival," Paknia had said in the X post.

Rasoulof was incarcerated by Iranian authorities in July 2022 after he posted an appeal urging Iranian security forces to stop using weapons during protests prompted by a building collapse in the southwestern city of Abadan. He was released in February 2023 for health reasons.

Earlier, Rasoulof was not allowed by Iranian authorities to attend the Berlinale in 2020. That year, the director's daughter, Baran Rasoulof, who stars in "There Is No Evil," picked up his Golden Bear.

Last year, in May, Rasoulof was banned from leaving Iran to serve as a member of the Cannes Film Festival's Un Certain Regard jury.