Iran’s predominant filmmakers’ union on Tuesday known as on authorities to launch famend dissident director Jafar Panahi, who has been imprisoned for six months.
Panahi, 62, certainly one of Iran’s most awarded filmmakers, was arrested on July 11 and is serving a six-year sentence handed down in 2010.
The House of Cinema, which brings collectively skilled filmmakers in Iran, known as for his launch “as soon as possible”, in an announcement posted on its web site.
It appealed for Iran’s judiciary to consider the “physical condition and illness” of the filmmaker, with out elaborating.
Panahi has received the highest prizes in Venice for “The Circle” and Berlin for “Taxi”, in addition to greatest screenplay at Cannes for “Three Faces”.
On high of his six-year sentence, he was handed a 20-year ban from making or writing movies, travelling and even talking within the media, however he continued to work in Iran.
He was convicted of “propaganda against the system” after supporting 2009 protests over the disputed re-election of then president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
In July, Panahi was arrested on the Tehran court docket the place he had gone to comply with the case of one other award-winning director, Mohammad Rasoulof, who had been detained a couple of days earlier than.
On Wednesday, Rasoulof’s lawyer advised AFP that his consumer had been launched on January 7 for 2 weeks on well being grounds.
Meanwhile, a court docket sentenced documentary filmmaker Mojgan Ilanlou “to six years in prison and 74 lashes” for conspiracy towards the nation’s nationwide safety, the reformist Shargh newspaper reported on its web site Tuesday.
Ilanlou had been “detained for 90 days and spent 40 days of this period in solitary confinement”, the publication mentioned.
Iran has arrested quite a few celebrities from the nation’s movie business in reference to the protest motion sparked by the loss of life in custody of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old ethnic Kurd, in September final 12 months.
