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Iranian film director Mohammad Rasoulof flees Iran to avoid prison

Director had been sentenced for ‘collusion with the intention of committing a crime against the country’s security’

Since The Seed of the Sacred Fig was announced as part of the official competition at Cannes, the director and the festival had come under pressure from Iranian authorities to pull the film. In a statement published by Variety on Monday, Rasoulof said: “I arrived in Europe a few days ago after a long and complicated journey … I didn’t have much time to make a decision. Authorities have cracked down on protests that followed the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish-Iranian woman detained for allegedly not properly wearing the Islamic headscarf in 2022.

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