Iranian Director Saeed Roustayi Imprisoned For Screening Movie ‘Leila’s Brothers’ in Cannes

Iranian director and screenwriter Saeed Roustayi has been sentenced to 6 months in jail for screening his movie Leila’s Brothers on the 2022 Cannes Movie Pageant with out mandatory authorization, in keeping with native reviews.

The filmmaker — alongside his producer Javad Noruzbegi — have been on Tuesday discovered responsible of “contributing to propaganda of the opposition in opposition to the Islamic system” by Tehran’s Islamic Revolutionary Court docket, as per reviews within the Iranian day by day Etemad and Radio Free Europe.

The court docket dominated that the 2 will serve about 9 days in jail, whereas the remaining of the sentence can be suspended over 5 years, throughout which era they’ve successfully been banned from making movies. The necessities say that they “chorus from actions associated to the dedicated crime or utilizing instruments efficient in it,” “keep away from contact and affiliation with people energetic within the movie trade” and “attend a filmmaking course on the Qom Sound and Imaginative and prescient Academy.”

Leila’s Brothers, centered on an Iranian girl as she tries to maintain her household afloat amid corruption and the impression of worldwide sanctions, was in the primary competitors in Cannes, profitable the FIPRESCI prize. In his acceptance speech, Roustayi stated the movie had been made in honor of these grieving following the lethal collapse of a tower within the Iranian metropolis of Abadan. The speech angered Iranian authorities, who promptly banned Leila’s Brothers from releasing within the nation. On the time, native media reported the movie had been banned after it “broke the foundations by being entered at worldwide movie festivals with out authorization.”

Roustayi and Noruzbegi be part of a rising variety of Iranian filmmakers to fall foul of the authoritarian regime, particularly in mild of the latest protest motion. Jafar Panahi — who received the Cannes greatest screenplay award in 2018 for 3 Faces however was unable to attend, as he was banned from leaving Iran — was arrested in 2022 and sentenced to 6 years in jail after going to the prosecutor’s workplace to ask concerning the detention of fellow filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof. He was ultimately launched on bail 48 hours after starting a starvation strike in February 2023.

In the meantime, distinguished Iranian actresses Afsaneh Bayegan, Fatemeh Motamed-Arya, Katayoun Riahi and Pantea Bahram have been interrogated after they confirmed solidarity with the protests by making public appearances with out the obligatory hijab, and are actually face authorized motion.