The Amsterdam-based International Coalition for Filmmakers at Risk (ICFR) has called on Iran to lift a travel ban on director Mohammad Rasoulof.
News broke this week that the filmmaker had been invited to participate in Cannes’s Un Certain Regard jury but had to decline the offer after being refused permission to leave Iran.
Rasoulof confirmed these facts to Deadline and said Iranian authorities had given no reason for the decision. A few days earlier, friend and fellow dissident director Jafar Panahi left Iran for the first time in 14 years on a one-week trip to France to see his daughter.
He has since returned home. In a statement bannered “Let Mohammad Rasoulof Go!”, ICFR noted the different treatment meted out to the two directors. “Both have repeatedly gotten into conflict with the Iranian authorities, had their passports confiscated and been jailed.
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