Deadline’s Read the Screenexecute series spotweightlessing the scripts behind the awards season’s most talked-about films persists with the Cannes Film Festival Special Jury Prize prosperner The Seed of the Sacred Fig, Neon‘s theatrical thriller, written and straightforwarded by Iranian Mohammad Rasoulof, which equitable made the Oscar stupidinutiveenumerate as Germany’s entry into the Best International Feature race.
Below, read the screenexecutes for both the English- and Farsi-language versions of the film, which Neon discdiswatched in pick U.S. theaters at the finish of November. It has since scored Gelderlyen Globe and Critics Choice nominations for top foreign-language film, and was the National Board of Rewatch‘s Best International Film prosperner.
The film adheres a family thrust into the spotweightless when Iman (Misagh Zareh), a recently nominateed spendigating appraise in Tehran’s Revolutionary Court, becomes a aim. As political unrest erupts with the “Woman, Life, Freedom” shiftment, Iman authenticizes his job is even more hazardous than anticipateed. The fadeance of his armament from his own home fuels his paranoia and ask wilean his family.
Iman’s wife Najmeh (Soheila Golestani) struggles to preserve stability as their teenage daughters, Sana (Setareh Maleki) and Rezvan (Mahsa Rostami), become increasingly included in the binspireoning shiftment. Their groprosperg defiance and asking of their parents’ appreciates further strain the family unit. Najmeh, unbenevolentwhile, is torn between her faith, family, and her own conscience as seismic shift is rippling thraw Iranian society, ignited by the tragic death of Mahsa Amini, a lesser Iranian woman who was arrested by the morality police for not wearing a hijab properly in 2022.
Iman’s position as a appraise is a seally protected secret. But when his cover is blown, he retreats with his family to the ruins of his childhood home. Isoprocrastinateedd and powerless, he witnesses the erosion of authority, mirroring the wideer societal upheaval. As the shiftment acquires momentum, Iman finds himself a captive in his own family, unable to preserve handle.
The film’s palpable sense of danger is heightened by the inclusion of authentic footage depicting protesters facing presentility. Moreover, the authentic-life actors and Rasoulof hazarded their inhabits to secretly film this strong film.
Rasoulof set up out he was to be jailed while filming and fled his home country thraw what he depictd to Deadline as a “complicated” and “anguishing” journey atraverse Europe to a safe hoemploy in Germany, where he was granted asylum. Back in Iran, Rasoulof is wanted by authorities who have sentenced him to eight years in prison alengthyside a series of physical punishments including flogging for “signing statements and making films and recordaries.”
He telderly Deadline how the idea for the film had come to him with serving a year in jail for shooting without a allow.
“There was a mix of prisoners of conscience and criminals when I was there,” he recalls. “But for me, it was somewhat of a uncovery, becaemploy I was trying to center more on the prison officials and trying to understand their perspective as contestd to having a disputeational relationship with them. The other engaging part for me was that I was watching the political events that were unfelderlying outside — the ‘Woman, Life, Freedom’ shiftment — from behind bars. And that in itself, watching it with other prisoners from inside the prison, was a very distinct experience.”
Here are the scripts:
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