Bahman Ghobadi ,Urges Oscar to include One Representative From Exile d Artists” For Oscar Consideration

Exiled Iranian Filmmaker Bahman Ghobadi Urges Movie Academy To Include “One Representative From Exiled Artists” For Oscar Consideration

Deadline News: Sept 28th, 2021

Bahman Ghobadi, the exiled Iranian filmmaker who has won prizes at Cannes, Berlin, San Sebastian, and many other international festivals, has penned a letter to the Film Academy saying, “It would be great if we could have one representative from exiled artists.”

Ghobadi, who has been in exile for the past 13 years, joined the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 2017. In his letter to Academy CEO Dawn Hudson, he talks about exiled artists and suggests that every year one of their movies should be presented to the Academy for Oscar consideration. He notes that the same thing happened for the Tokyo Olympics, where a team of refugee athletes was able to join the competition.

Iran is a country with a complicated filmmaking legacy. One the one hand, it has spawned some of the world’s great directors — Abbas Kiarostami comes to mind — and its films have won Oscars and the Palme d’Or. But the country’s cinema has also been tied up with its politics, inextricably at times.

In 2013, Iran boycotted the Oscars entirely, not allowing any of its directors to submit films in its name. Ironically, the year before, Asghar Farhadi’s film A Separation won Best Foreign Language Film for Iran at the Academy Awards.