Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof watched “There Is No Evil” with his own prison guards “seven nights in a row,” he recalled at Goteborg.
“I was still bound to the bed and they were complimenting me: ‘Well done for making such a wonderful film!’ The problem started when new guards came in the next day, and they wanted to watch it with me as well.”
It all went down when Rasoulof, who was experiencing health problems following his arrest, needed an operation. Multiple prison guards were making sure he couldn’t escape the hospital.
“After a while, one of them came and said: ‘I heard you are a film director. Is it ok if we took a selfie together?’ Then other guards took turns, coming into the room and taking selfies with me.” They’d heard about “There Is No Evil,” he said.
One of the film’s episodes depicts a day in the life of an executioner.
“One of them took out a USB stick and said: ‘I have it here. I already saw it, but it’s not the same as watching it with the man who directed it.’ They made sure nobody else could come and we watched it in the middle of the night.”
Following controversies in his country and arrests, Rasoulof eventually escaped Iran. He’s now based in Germany.
“In a society where there’s censorship, the most important thing you can do is be yourself. Dictatorships want to make people, each and every one of us, one and the same. When everyone thinks the same way and speaks the same way, it’s easier to control them,” he said.
“Historically, Iranians have chosen to perform their art [indirectly] to protect themselves and speak freely to what their hearts truly mean. You will find many metaphors within the characters of old Persian poetry and literature. That is also how I’ve chosen to start my film career, too: I was using metaphors to speak freely.”
Soon, he found himself “adjusting to the limitations as an artist.”
“After making my fourth film, I’ve decided to become more straightforward,” he explained. While the films started gaining international attention, his decision also resulted in the regime sending him to prison.
“After ‘A Man of Integrity,’ I was forbidden to make films. I made the decision to leave the country in order to free myself from the censorship and limitations. When I was in prison, I asked myself: ‘If I were to be sentenced to eight years in prison, would it be better to stay in Iran as a filmmaker who was a victim of censorship, or would I find a practical way to continue my work? I chose the second option.”
His latest film, “The Seed of the Sacred Fig,” was shown at Cannes. In Goteborg, he was joined by actor Setareh Maleki, who has also since left Iran, admitting “everything has changed and gone upside down” since the premiere. Another actor, Soheila Golestani, was recently banned from leaving the country in order to serve on a jury at the Rotterdam Film Festival.
“We were watching the film [at the festival] and there were scenes people found funny. Those who haven’t experienced these situations can’t really understand the seriousness and the pain these people must go through, but I tried to show what life is like in Iran,” he said.
“The things I talk about might seem comedic, but at the time, they didn’t feel funny. It was a tough situation.”
Asked about Sweden’s Quran burnings by festival’s artistic director Pia Lundberg – with the freedom of speech protected under the Swedish constitution – Rasoulof noted that it’s “interesting that this discussion has happened in Ruben Östlund’s country.”
“He has tried to address all these questions, and [say] how important it is to defend and protect democracy, because it is vulnerable. This is this scene in ‘The Square,’ when a man jumps on the table to disturb others around him. People remain silent, they keep calm and try not to react. This is the behavior of the older generation.”
He added: “In my opinion, when you are trying to protect democracy, that’s the only time where radical action is appropriate. But you must be careful when practicing your freedom, because it can become an interference or a nuisance to other people’s freedoms. It’s something we must continuously work on.”
