Mohammad Rasoulof’s ‘The Seed Of The Sacred Fig’ World Premiere Gets Nearly 15-Minute, Emotional Standing Ovation – Cannes Film Festival
deadline.comThis afternoon, Iranian filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof debuted his latest feature, The Seed of the Sacred Fig, in Competition here at the Cannes Film Festival to a nearly 15-minute standing ovation.
The fact that the filmmaker was in attendance is especially poignant after he fled his home country through what he described to Deadline as a “complicated” and “anguishing” journey across Europe to a safe house in Germany.
Back in Iran, Rasoulof is wanted by authorities who have sentenced him to eight years in prison alongside a series of physical punishments including flogging for “signing statements and making films and documentaries.” Rasoulof appealed his sentence, and during the lengthy legal process put together a plan to flee Iran, which he told us all together took 28 days on the road.
Best known for his forceful, politically driven features like Manuscripts Don’t Burn (2013) and A Man Of Integrity (2017), Rasoulof has been in the crosshairs of Iran’s hardline Islamic Republic government throughout his career for challenging its authoritarian rule.
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