Iranian director Asghar Farhadi threatens to not symbolize nation at Oscars

By AFP

TEHRAN: Iranian double Oscar-winning movie director Asghar Farhadi has launched a scathing assault on Tehran authorities and threatened to not symbolize Iran on the subsequent version of the distinguished awards ceremony.

“How can I be associated… with a government whose extremist media have not stopped these past years from destroying me, marginalising me, stigmatising me?” he requested on his Instagram web page.

Farhadi, who divides his time between Iran and overseas, shot his final film, “A Hero”, a drama a few prisoner, within the Iranian metropolis of Shiraz.

“I have explicitly expressed my point of view on the suffering (the state) has imposed for years on the nation,” he stated, referring to the repression of demonstrations in January 2017 and November 2019, and the “cruel discrimination” towards ladies and the federal government’s dealing with of the Covid-19 pandemic.

“If Iran’s submission of my film at the Oscars led people to think that I’m under your flag, I state explicitly that it is no problem for me to scrap this decision,” he wrote, ruling out any ambiguity on his stand.

“I have never felt the least affinity with your attitude and retrograde thinking, (even though) I’ve never spoken until now of the persecution you’ve made me suffer,” stated Farhadi, addressing authorities.

“You’ve confiscated my passport at the airport several times and organised interrogation sessions,” he stated within the feedback posted final week.

Farhadi’s 2011 movie “The Separation” received each an Oscar and Golden Globe as greatest foreign-language film. In 2017, he received a second foreign-language Oscar along with his work “The Salesman”.

Iranian newspapers have aired blended reactions to his open letter.

“Awards at festivals and foreign investments have apparently changed Farhadi (by encouraging him) to give a gloomy and dirty image of Iran,” wrote the ultraconservative day by day Kayhan.

Pro-reform newspaper Shargh defended the film-maker.

“Farhadi’s image corresponds neither to those who praise him nor to his critics in Iran, and he has always expressed clearly his positions on socio-political questions,” Shargh stated.

The director’s newest movie, “A Hero”, is scheduled for launch in US film theatres in January, adopted the identical month by streaming on Amazon Prime.