site.btaOscar-Nominated Director Mohammad Rasoulof to Attend Sofia Film Fest

Oscar-nominated Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof will attend the Sofia Film Fest (SFF) in March to present his critically acclaimed film The Seed of the Sacred Fig, said Art Fest.

The independent director, screenwriter and producer will receive the special FIPRESCI Platinum Award, dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the International Federation of Film Critics. He will also give a masterclass.

"In the spring of 2024, Mohammad Rasoulof took an immense risk by attending Cannes in person, as he still has an outstanding sentence and a travel ban from the authorities preventing him from leaving his homeland. His film The Seed of the Sacred Fig offers a dramatic and insightful analysis of the reality in which he and his fellow citizens are forced to live. In a tense thriller-like plot, the protest movement Women, Life, Freedom is indirectly referenced, and the story centres on the fate of a family whose two daughters are trying to understand their father's involvement in the country's political regime," said the SFF organizers.

Mohammad Rasoulof was born in 1972 in Shiraz, Iran. He studied sociology. For his first feature film The Twilight (2002), he won the Best Film Award at the Fajr International Film Festival in Iran. After the release of his second film, Iron Island (2005), his problems with censorship in Iran began, and his ability to make films became severely restricted, eventually leading to a complete ban. His films are not shown in his homeland due to censorship, but they enjoy a wide festival audience abroad.