Asghar Farhadi has called on the Iranian government to allow fellow Iranian film-maker Jafar Panahi to travel to the Cannes film festival to present his new film.
Panahi, a previous award-winner at Cannes, has been barred from leaving his home country since 2010, when he was found guilty by authorities of committing “propaganda against the Islamic Republic”. The director’s newest film, Three Faces, has been included in the festival competition, with Cannes head Thierry Frémaux asking the French government for assistance in convincing Iran to allow Panahi to attend.
Issuing a statement at the end of a press conference for his film Everybody Knows, which opened this year’s festival, Farhadi said that he had “difficulty living with” the fact that he was able to attend Cannes, while Panahi wasn’t.
“I spoke to him yesterday,” Farhadi said. “I have great respect for his work and continue to hope he will be able to come. I would like to send out this message: I hope that the decision will be taken for him to be allowed to come. What’s important for him is not to be able to catch a flight, but for him to be able to see how spectators view his film. It’s not by reading the news that he’ll get this experience.”
“It’s a very strange feeling for me to be able to be here whereas he cannot be here,” Farhadi added. “This is something I have difficulty living with. It’s wonderful that he’s continued his work in the face of such adversity.”
Farhadi’s Everybody Knows stars Penélope Cruz and Javier Bardem as former lovers who are drawn together when Cruz’s character’s daughter is kidnapped. During the press conference, Cruz revealed that she and Bardem, who are married, received equal pay for the film.
In a quirk of timing, Everybody Knows premiered on the same day that Donald Trump announced that the US would withdraw from the international nuclear agreement with Iran. Farhadi said that he had received messages of support in the wake of Trump’s announcement. The director made headlines last year when he boycotted the Oscars in the wake of the travel ban issued by the Trump administration against some Muslim countries, which he described as “inhumane”.
