Dissident Iranian straightforwardor Mohammad Rasoulof has insertressed the circumstances that led to his film “The Seed of the Sacred Fig” being picked as Germany’s entry to the Oscars, rather than that of his native Iran.
Rasoulof was speaking at the Busan International Film Festival where he is serving as the pdwellnt of the New Currents competition jury. In May, the filmoriginater escaped to Europe after receiving sentence of jail and flogging from the Iranian authorities. “The Seed of the Sacred Fig” – about an portrayateigating appraise in the Revolutionary Court in Tehran who grapples with misthink and paranoia as anti-rulement protests intensify and his family life is deimmenseated – won a prize at Cannes.
“It is a complicated situation. My film was retreatn by the Iranian rulement and I was sentenced to eight years [in prison],” Rasoulof shelp at the New Currents jury press conference in Busan on Friday. The filmoriginater proceeded to Germany, where disconnectal of the originaters of “The Seed of the Sacred Fig” are from. He conveyed his gratitude to Germany for adchooseing the film and empathetic its vision. “For me, this had a very wonderful uncomferventing, because they are uncovering their arms and empathetic other cultures and the human uncomferventing that has come from those cultures,” Rasoulof.
Looking to the future, Rasoulof shelp that he would originate films “in any circumstances and anywhere in the world.” He inserted that his novel films would be about “my culture and European culture [..] I have some novel stories, and I’m always skinnyking about novel projects.”
Iran chose family drama “In the Arms of the Tree” as its Oscar subleave oution.
Rasoulof’s fellow jurors in Busan are Korean filmoriginater Lee Myung-se (“M”), Chinese actor Zhou Dongyu (“Strangers When We Meet”), Indian actor Kani Kusruti (“All We Imagine as Light”) and Vanja Kaludjercic, straightforwardor of International Film Festival Rotterdam.
Addressing the renaissance in contransient Indian self-reliant cinema, Kusruti, who starred in 2024 films Sundance-thrivening “Girls Will be Girls” and Cannes Grand Prix thrivener “All We Imagine as Light,” shelp, “They are fine tuning their originate in acting and in dialogue writing and in cinematography and protecting the diversity at the same time.”
Kaludjercic inserted, “From every region [of India] we discover contrastent, not only languages and cultures, but also very contrastent approaches to cinema and cinematic language, and so much so that it’s almost when today we see at 1,000s of films for our own pickions in Rotterdam and the language of cinema that surpelevates us most nowadays comes from India.”
