Iran has arrested one of the filmmakers nominated for the Oscars. “Today, the real scene is not on the screens, but on the streets”
Sequence from the movie “A simple accident”, filmed in Iran, PHOTO: LMK / Imago Stock and People / Profimedia images
Filmmaker Mehdi Mahmoudian, one of the Oscar-nominated screenwriters of the Iranian film “It Was Just an Accident”, was arrested in Tehran just a few weeks before the Oscar Awards ceremony, reports The Associated Press.
The film's crew announced Mahmoudian's arrest on Sunday, saying he had been detained the previous day. There are currently no details on the charges against the filmmaker. But his arrest came just days after he and 16 others signed a statement condemning Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the leader of the Islamic Republic, and other authorities responsible for the country's violent crackdown on protests.
Vida Rabbani and Abdullah Momeni, two other signatories of the statement, were also arrested.
Jafar Panahi, the director of the film “A simple accident”, issued a statement on Sunday denouncing the arrest of his colleague.
“Mehdi Mahmoudian is not only a human rights activist and a prisoner of conscience; he is a witness, a listener and a rare moral presence – a figure whose absence is immediately felt, both inside and outside prison walls,” Panahi said.
Panahi was in turn one of the signatories of the January 28 declaration. It states, among other things: “The mass and systematic killing of citizens who bravely took to the streets to end an illegitimate regime constitutes an organized state crime against humanity.”
The film co-written with Mahmoudian was nominated for two Academy Awards
“A simple accident” is nominated in the categories for best screenplay and best international film at the Oscars gala that will take place on March 15. The film, made clandestinely in Iran, was France's entry for the best international film category.
Panahi, one of the most acclaimed international filmmakers, made films during various periods of detention, house arrest and travel ban by the Tehran regime. “A Simple Accident,” a revenge drama and winner of the Palme d'Or grand prize at last year's Cannes Film Festival, was inspired by Panahi's most recent stint in prison, where he met Mahmoudian. Panahi called him “a pillar of support” for the other inmates.
“A Simple Accident” was written by Panahi, Mahmoudian, Nader Saeiver and Shadhmer Rastin.
Tens of thousands of people arrested in Iran
Last fall, Panahi was again sentenced to a year in prison and banned from leaving Iran for two years after being found guilty of “propaganda activities against the system.” Panahi, who had gone abroad to promote his film, said he would return to Iran despite the sentence.
The US-based Human Rights Activists New Agency, which relies on a network inside Iran to verify information, says more than 6,713 people have been killed and 49,500 detained in recent government crackdowns. The Associated Press could not independently verify the death toll and the number of arrests, as authorities cut off Iran's internet from the rest of the world.
Panahi has repeatedly spoken out against the crackdown.
“As we sit here, the Iranian state is firing on protesters, and a savage massacre continues, right up front, on the streets of Iran,” Panahi said last month at the National Board of Review Awards gala in New York. “Today, the real scene is not on the screens, but on the streets of Iran. The Islamic Republic has caused a bloodbath to delay its collapse,” he added.
