Belgian directors Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah, French filmmaker Alice Diop and Romanian director Cristian Mungiu have demanded that Iran’s Fajr International Film Festival remove their films from the line-up of its current edition, running from February 1 to 11.

The filmmakers said in separate statements that they discovered by chance that their respective films Tori And Lokita, Saint Omer, Rebel and R.M.N.

had been included in Fajr’s selection without their personal permission. “We have just learned that our film Tori And Lokita is in the selection of the Fajr festival in Tehran,” the Dardennes said in a statement on Thursday. “We demand that the film be withdrawn immediately from the program of this festival which is a showcase for a dictatorial and murderous religious regime that we condemn.” Saint Omer director Alice Diop said she had been alerted to her film’s inclusion by exiled Iranian filmmaker Mehran Tamadon, whose My Worst Enemy will world premiere at the Berlinale later this month. “It’s completely inconceivable that my film can screen at the heart of an event organized by a regime that for years has run a campaign of violence and repression against its people, and where directors are imprisoned for daring to exercise their right to freedom of expression,” she said.

Rebel and Bad Boy For Life filmmakers Arbi and Fallah and their producers at Brussels-based Caviar said showing their film in the festival would be akin “to ignoring the struggles of oppressed people of Iran for their rights”. “We stand in support with Iranian director Jafar Panahi, who was arrested on July 20th in Teheran and is still incarcerated to this day,” they said, referring to the dissident filmmaker

Dardennes, Alice Diop, Cristian Mungiu, Adil El Arbi & Bilall Fallah Demand Iran’s Fajr Film Fest Remove Titles From Line-Up

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