YBCA Brings Attention to Embattled Iranian Artists | SF360.
Last December, Iranian courts sentenced Jafar Panahi and Mohammad Rasoulof to six years in prison and a 20-year ban from writing and directing films, speaking to foreign press and leaving the country—a definitive word on their lives as socially engaged artists. The filmmakers were convicted of “assembly and colluding with the intention to commit crimes against the country’s national security and propaganda against the Islamic Republic.” That with the intention phrase to is a chilling reminder of authoritarian soothsaying. The sentence came ten months after the men were first arrested for allegedly working on a film with pro-Reform sympathies (though one imagines even just acknowledging the Green Movement’s existence would have set off alarms). Most of the 19 apprehended in this initial raid were released in a matter of days, but Rasoulof was kept waiting two weeks and Panahi was only let out on bail on May 25.
