Tehran protested to Paris against the selection of this Iranian film which tells the story of a serial killer of prostitutes and for which the actress Zar Amir Ebrahimi received the prize for female interpretation.
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Tehran announced on Wednesday that it had protested to France against the selection by the Cannes Film Festival of the film Nights of Mashhad which tells the story of a serial killer of prostitutes in the Islamic Republic.
Directed by Danish-Iranian Ali Abbassi, Mashhad Nights was part of the official selection for the 75th edition of the festival, which is not officially linked to the French government. And the Iranian Zar Amir Ebrahimi who plays in the film won the prize for female interpretation.
“We have formally protested to the French government”, Iranian Culture Minister Mohammad-Mehdi Esmaili told state television. The selection of this film is “completely political” and aims to “showing a bad image of Iranian society”, he added. “We will certainly take this issue into account in our cultural exchanges”he continued without further details.
The Iranian Cinema Organization, affiliated with the Ministry of Culture, had already protested against the decision on Monday “Politics” to select the film at the Cannes Film Festival, which took place from May 17 to 28.
This film is inspired by the true story of a man who killed 16 prostitutes in the early 2000s in Mashhad (northeast). Zar Amir Ebrahimi plays a journalist who tries to unravel the mystery of these murders but is confronted with the machismo of a patriarchal society.
Great Iranian directors have been awarded at Cannes such as Abbas Kiarostami (who won the Palme in 1997) and Asghar Farhadi, who twice won the Oscar for best foreign language film and was part of the jury this year.