Mohammad Rasoulof

Born in Shiraz (Iran) in 1972. While studying Sociology at university, he began his film career with documentaries and short films. His first feature-length, ‘The Twilight’ (2002), won the award for best film at the Fajr Festival. In 2005 he directed ‘Iron Island’, his first fiction feature, which had its international premiere at the Cannes Film Festival in the Directors’ Fortnight before winning awards at Avanca, Gijón, Hamburg, India and Montreal. Four years later he returned to fiction with ‘The White Meadows’ (2009), which premiered at the San Sebastian Festival before picking up awards in Denver, Dubai and Durban. In 2010, he was arrested while filming with Jafar Panahi and subsequently sentenced to six years in prison, a sentence that was later reduced to one year. In 2011, he participated in Un Certain Regard at the Cannes Film Festival with ‘Goodbye’, which won the best director award and a special mention from the jury, before going on to triumph in Rotterdam and Durban. He returned to Cannes in 2013 to win the Fipresci Award with ‘Manuscripts Don’t Burn’, which also won a prize in Hamburg.

In 2017 he won the Un Certain Regard main prize for ‘A Man of Integrity’ at the Cannes Film Festival. On his return to Iran, he was officially banned from leaving the country, a sentence that is still in force, on the charges of ‘endange - ring national security’ and ‘spreading propaganda against the Islamic government’.

In 2018, Seminci dedicated a retrospective and a monographic book to his figure, although he was unable to collect the Spike of Honour awarded by the festival in person, as he was under house arrest. Six years later, Seminci will settle its debt by celebrating a well-deserved tribute to the Iranian filmmaker on his first visit to the city.

In 2020, he won the Golden Bear and the Ecumenical Jury Prize at the Berlin Festival for ‘There is No Evil’, which received a Special Jury Mention at Valladolid. Days before the Cannes premiere of ‘‘The Seed of the Sacred Fig’’ (2024), his latest film, which won the Special Jury Prize and the Critics‘Prize, he was sentenced to eight years’ imprisonment and flogging for crimes against national security, after which he decided to leave his country.