Iranian dissident filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof (There Is No Evil) had to flee his home country to evade an eight-year prison sentence last year.
His latest film, The Seed of the Sacred Fig, won a special jury award at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival and was in the running for the best international feature Oscar, submitted by his new home, Germany.
Right now, the auteur is serving as the head of the jury for the 15th edition of theLuxembourg City Film Festival, along with the likes of VFX expert Jeff Desom (Everything Everywhere All at Once) and long-time Ken Loach creative partner and screenwriter Paul Laverty.
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During a break of his LuxFilmFest jury duties, Rasoulof talked to THR, via a translator, about what he is currently working on, parallels between Iran and the U.S. under President Donald Trump and the Iranian creatives who should not be ignored by the world.
How have you been adjusting to life in Europe since you had to flee Iran? And have you found time to think about or work on a new film?
It’s been quite intense, and everything’s going really fast, so I can’t say that I’ve really had time to ponder. But I fly a lot, I spend a lot of time in planes. I am writing my next project, and most of what I’ve written has been written on a plane.
Can you share anything more about what you are writing about or the themes you are exploring?
The first thing is a theater project. After 30 years, I am back to working on a play. It’s a project in Berlin that we are going to work on with the actresses from The Seed of the Sacred Fig [Niousha Akhshi, Mahsa Rostami and Setareh Maleki], because they have had to leave Iran for Germany, too.
The play really deals with the challenges of migration, of what it means to get to know a new culture, opening up to a new culture, and how you deal with your own culture that you leave behind. How can you keep your attachment but not completely collapse because of this attachment? It’s like a love story — how to go on living, even once you have left.
For a while, there was a lot of news coverage on the political situation and unrest in Iran and how isolated it is from the rest of the world. Now, a lot of headlines focus on the U.S. and President Trump’s policies, including a more isolationist approach, that divide the country. Do you see any parallels between Iran and what’s going on in the U.S.?
I think democracy is always threatened. It can never be taken for granted. No matter what country, what system, there is always a risk of totalitarianism and of human rights being questioned. This is something that remains a battle, no matter where you are. So this kind of parallel can easily be drawn between Iran and other countries, [including those with] an arrogant isolation program, definitely.
But if what you stand for as an artist is humanism and human rights, you always have your word to say and struggle to go on fighting, no matter where you are. There is something to be done.
You have left Iran, and so have other filmmakers and the Seed of the Sacred Fig actresses. Do you see the Iranian diaspora leading the charge in terms of speaking out against the situation in your home country?
Unfortunately, it’s not that simple because people who are out of Iran don’t necessarily see precisely what’s going on in Iran. They have this other take on things. And the people who are in Iran are not necessarily willing to be represented by those who have left. You always have this kind of tension when there is a diaspora and when the migration of people from the country is so widespread that they are all over the world and not necessarily still linked with [their home country]. But what all these Iranians have in common, no matter where they are, are very deep cultural roots and common ground. And it’s also made easier nowadays thanks to the digital world and networks. You are able to stay in touch and to have a kind of abstract community.
But what I find really important is the Iranian people — people who go on living in Iran are those who must be able to have their word to say about the future of Iran. The decision has to be made by them.
Is there anything else that you feel people don’t understand enough about Iran or that you don’t ever get asked about that you find important to highlight?
There is a whole generation of young artists and filmmakers in Iran that are in an unheard-of situation, in a very specific situation, which is that their bodies are taken like hostages in this very oppressive system in which they are not free in terms of their movements, their production, their thinking, their expression. But their heads, their minds are completely on a different level. They are nourished by the context of all the world’s production, and they produce, and they create and they exchange works that have to do with this outer world they belong to, a much larger world than the one in which they are stuck. That’s what I miss.
I think that world cinema and, in general, the world should realize and pay attention to how important, how unique, these artists are, and how the work that they create is different and comes from this very paradoxical situation.
They evolve in this underground, alternative world, and they ignore censorship, which in itself is a very bold statement. But they don’t let these conditions interfere with their narratives. They are not political in a literal way. So, western festivals or countries don’t pay attention to their work because they’re not political enough, because there is this expectation that because they come from Iran, they must deal with the conditions in which they work. But they are above that. They just ignore the situation, and they express their own desires, their own aspirations, their own interests. And I really feel sorry that they are not known.
