Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof has left Iran and traveled to Europe clandestinely after being sentenced to eight years in prison by the country’s authorities, who pressured him to pull his latest work “The Seed of the Sacred Fig” from the Cannes Film Festival and harassed the film’s producers and actors.

“We are very happy and much relieved that Mohammad has safely arrived in Europe after a dangerous journey,” said Jean-Christophe Simon, CEO of Films Boutique and Parallel45, who are distributing the film. “We hope he will be able to attend the Cannes premiere of ‘The Seed of the Sacred Fig’ in spite of all attempts to prevent him from being there in person.”

Rasoulov is among Iran’s most prominent directors even though none of his films have screened in Iran where they have always been banned. In 2011, the year he won two prizes at Cannes with his censorship-themed “Goodbye,” he was sentenced with fellow director Jafar Panahi to six years in prison and a 20-year ban on filmmaking for alleged anti-regime propaganda. His sentence was later suspended and he was released on bail. In 2017 Iranian authorities confiscated Rasoulof’s passport upon his return from the Telluride Film Festival where his “A Man of Integrity,” about corruption and injustice in Iran, had screened.

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https://variety.com/2024/film/global/mohammad-rasoulof-leaves-iran-prison-sentence-cannes-seed-of-the-sacred-fig-1236000724/