Filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof transformed the Cannes Film Festival into a sounding board for Iranian women and their resistance, fleeing the mullahs’ regime at the risk of his life to come and present his film in person.
The political context of this screening in Cannes, as well as the strength of the film itself, make Seeds of the wild fig treeone of the most serious candidates for the Palme d’Or, awarded on Saturday evening.
Shot clandestinely, but impeccably produced, the film follows for 2 hours and 45 minutes an Iranian investigator, who has just been promoted to magistrate, and women from three different generations: his wife, their youngest daughter, a student, and the youngest, a teenager.
The popular uprising which followed the death of Mahsa Amini, arrested at the end of 2022 for not having respected the Islamic dress code, is the backdrop to the film. And will turn the lives of the protagonists upside down.
While the father is ordered by the authorities to seek the death penalty against opponents of the regime, his daughters come to the aid of one of their comrades, injured by the police during a demonstration.
Paranoia, lies and the poison of suspicion: alongside the regime which is getting tougher, the family falls into a fatal spiral.
Exile or prison
After corruption in A man of integrity (2017) then the death penalty in The devil does not exist, Mohammad Rasoulof burned his last vessels with this indictment against the arbitrariness and violence of the regime. He had managed to keep secret the exact subject of his film, which includes amateur images of the repression of the “Woman, Life, Freedom” movement.
Before his presentation, he therefore had no other choice than exile or return to prison.
Just two weeks ago, no one would have imagined this big name in Iranian cinema who defied censorship for years, and was sentenced on appeal to eight years in prison, five of which are applicable, walking the red carpet.
At the cost of a dangerous clandestine escape through the mountains, which took him to Europe, Rasoulof was finally able to reach Cannes, where he received a standing ovation, alongside Iranian actress Golshifteh Farahani, who lives in exile in France for around fifteen years.
He was also accompanied by his daughter Baran, a symbolic passing of the baton since it was the latter who received the Golden Bear in Berlin in the name of her father, who was banned from leaving his country four years ago.
However, only part of the film crew was able to leave Iran.
On the red carpet Mohammad Rasoulof held up photos of two of his main actors, Missagh Zareh and Soheila Golestani, the father and mother in the film.
Festival support
By welcoming him in person, the 77e Festival sends a signal “to all artists who, in the world, suffer violence and reprisals in the expression of their art”, underlined the general delegate of the festival, Thierry Frémaux, to AFP. And, more broadly, to opponents of the regime in place in Iran, where repression continues to increase.
Amnesty International says that Iran, shaken by a protest movement at the end of 2022 after the death of young Mahsa Amini, executed 853 people in 2023, the highest number since 2015.
Filmmakers are regularly accused of propaganda against the regime, in a country where conservatives concentrate all power. A situation unlikely to change after the recent death of President Ebrahim Raïssi in a helicopter crash.
International festivals and the sounding board they provide are an important form of recognition for Iranian filmmakers struggling with the regime, like Jafar Panahi (Taxi Tehran) or Saeed Roustaee (Leila and her brothers), regularly selected, despite the repression they suffer.
Besides The seeds of the wild fig treethe jury chaired by the American Greta Gerwig also views the last of the 22 opuses of the competition on Friday, The most valuable commodityby Michel Hazanavicius (The Artist), animated film evoking the Shoah.