TIFF '24: A Mohammad Rasoulof Double Feature
Sunday, September 22, 2024 at 10:30PM 
THE SEED OF THE SACRED FIG won a Special Jury Prize at Cannes.
Much of the period leading up to this year's Cannes Film Festival was consumed with news of Iranian filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof. Always outspoken against an oppressive regime, his career has been dedicated to political art commenting on present injustices through the prism of fiction. For this, he has been arrested multiple times, and his latest feature, The Seed of the Sacred Fig, proved too much for the Iranian authorities. Police hounded many people involved with the production, Cannes organizers were pressured to drop the official competition title, and Rasoulof himself was put behind bars, convicted to eight years in prison and an additional filmmaking ban. Thankfully, before celebrations started at the Croisette, the cineaste managed an escape to a safe house in Germany, the same country that now takes Sacred Fig to the Oscars as its official submission.
At TIFF, two works with screenplays signed by the Iranian political dissident were screened. There was the eponymous Cannes prize-winner and Seven Days, directed by Ali Samadi Ahadi…