Mohammad Rasulf has been released from Iran’s notorious Evin prison due to health reasons
Iranian media reported that dissident Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulf was released from prison over the weekend.
Raswolf, who won the Berlinale Golden Bear in 2020 There is no evilArrested last July along with fellow filmmaker Mostafa Al-Ahmad.
He was detained after signing a petition titled ‘Lay Down Your Arms’ calling on security forces to exercise restraint over mass protests following a deadly building collapse.
Raswolf has been in and out of Avin since early 2023.
His lawyer Miriam Kianarsi, who had already suspended his sentence for two weeks on January 11 for health reasons, told French news agency AFP on Saturday that his client had been released again.
There is no indication of how long he will be out of jail. There is no record of al-Ahmad being arrested at the same time as Rasulf.
Rasoulf’s temporary release comes days after Zafar Panahi was released from Evin on bail. Panahi was arrested a few days after Rasoulf and Al-Ahmad went to inquire about their whereabouts.
The arrest of the filmmakers came in the summer under a crackdown on dissent by Iran’s authoritarian Islamic Republic regime and before the “Women, Life, Freedom” uprising sparked by the killing of Mahsa Amini.
Since then, thousands of protesters have been arrested as the government tries to crack down on protests with force and has recently begun executing protesters.
Like Panahi, Rasoulf has long been in the crosshairs of Iran’s hardline Islamic Republic government.
He has been arrested and had his passport confiscated several times over the past 15 years to highlight the reality of living under his harsh regime. Manuscripts do not burn (2013) and A man of integrity (2017).
Both films premiered at Cannes Un Certain Regard where they won the Fipreski Award and the Best Film Award respectively.
Russulf made it to Cannes in 2017 A man of integrity and traveled the festival circuit with the film until his passport was confiscated after returning from Telluride in September of that year.
Since then he has not left Iran and won the World Premiere and Golden Bear for his last film There is no evil happened in his absence.
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