Following the election of moderate President MasoudPezeshkian, Iran's filmmakers are hoping for an artistic futurewithout censorship.
"We had a meeting with the president, discussed the censorshipproblems of recent years and really shook our hearts out to him aboutthem," film director Jahangir Kosari said on Saturday.
After the meeting, he and his colleagues were confident that theIranian film industry would "breathe again" with Pezeshkian and finda censorship-free path, Kosari wrote on the website Parsine.
However, Kosari still has to be patient with his hopes for bettertimes. His latest film, "I am Forough," about the Iranian poetForough Farrokhzad, is not allowed to be shown in cinemas on theinstructions of the Ministry of Culture, which is still in office.
The ban is partly because the poet Farrokhzad, who is very popular inthe country, is one of Iran's leading feminists - and is therefore athorn in the side of the Islamic system - and partly because of hisdaughter Baran Kosari, who plays the leading role in the film.
In solidarity with the women's movement, she took off the obligatoryheadscarf in 2022 and has since been banned from working andtravelling abroad. Her picture, the film poster and the film itselfare therefore not allowed to be shown publicly, Kosari said.
However, he hopes that this "absurd ban" will be lifted withPezeshkian and a new minister of culture.
With Pezeshkian, Iranian filmmakers also hope that in future, art andnot the headscarf will once again be the main criterion in films.
The women's protests in September 2022 were triggered by the death ofthe young Iranian Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini, known to her friends andfamily as Jina. She was arrested by the morality police because a fewstrands of hair were visible under her headscarf. She died in policecustody.
Since then, many women have taken off the obligatory headscarf inprotest. Among them were renowned actresses, who were banned fromworking and travelling abroad as a result. The actress TaranehAlidoosti was even sent to prison for a fortnight as a result.— dpa
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