{"id":191719,"date":"2024-05-09T12:03:20","date_gmt":"2024-05-09T16:03:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=191719"},"modified":"2024-12-01T09:53:36","modified_gmt":"2024-12-01T14:53:36","slug":"news-about-iranian-director-mohammad-rasoulof","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=191719","title":{"rendered":"News about Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\nDeja vu horrible news<\/a> out of Iran. (Another story I’ve been following is the persecution of Iranian rapper Toomaj Salehi, which has been going on for two years now. Last year he was arrested and tortured for supporting the Women Life Freedom movement. He was released and made a video describing how he was tortured, uploading it to his Instagram<\/a>. He was arrested again, violently. Toomaj has now been sentenced to death<\/a>.) <\/p>\n

Just as with Jafar Panahi, the regime has been after Rasoulof for years. He is outspoken, nervy, brave. His films criticism the regime without euphemism. He has been arrested, jailed numerous times, his passport was confiscated in 2011. He has now been given an 8-year prison sentence and a flogging. (Barbaric.) <\/p>\n

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Rasoulof’s 2013 film Manuscripts Don’t Burn<\/i> (2013) is one of the bravest and riskiest films to come out of Iran since the pro-democracy revolution was hijacked by mullahs in 1979. Manuscripts Don’t Burn<\/i> is so risky that none of the cast members OR crew are listed by name in the credits, for their own protection. <\/p>\n

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\n(Jafar Panahi did the same thing in his great – and illegally made – This Is Not a Film<\/i><\/a>.) <\/p>\n

Manuscripts Don’t Burn<\/i> is based on real events: the regime’s henchmen track down, torture, and kill, dissident writers. The film’s title universalizes the message. This is not just an Iran story. “Manuscripts don’t burn” is a famous line from perhaps one of the most famous dissident works of all time, Mikhail Bulgakov\u2019s Master and Margarita<\/i>. Bulgakov considered the manuscript too dangerous to even have around in the Terror of Stalin’s 1930s – so Bulgakov burned his 20th century masterpiece. And remember: HE was \u201cspared\u201d by Stalin! Stalin “let him live”. But still: even having the manuscript hidden in a drawer was too dangerous. Years later, Bulgakov rewrote the book from memory<\/em>, but it was, of course, still un-publishable. They had private readings of it in his apartment. Everyone knew about it. Manuscripts don\u2019t burn. Even when they do.<\/em> Bulgakov did not live to see his book published. It would be another 20 years before it was published in Russia. <\/p>\n

Rasoulof\u2019s nod to Bulgakov\u2019s persecuted yet un-killable book is pointed and perfect.<\/p>\n

Rasoulof has been \u201cin trouble\u201d for years for this kind of thing. The timing is deliberate: The sentence comes just before his new film, The Seed of the Sacred Fig<\/i>, premieres at the Cannes Film Festival, end of May. <\/p>\n

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\nHaven\u2019t these bullies learned their lesson from their Jafar Panahi persecution, who always seemed to be arrested before big festivals, which then put even more of a spotlight on the disgraceful situation, creating international outcries?<\/p>\n

Everyone should care about what happens to the artists in Iran. And be able to separate the Iranian people from their regime. The Iranian people themselves have been trying – desperately – and literally dying – in the attempt to get rid of that regime. <\/p>\n

Manuscripts don\u2019t burn. Even if you burn them yourself. The regime wins battles but will never ever win the war. You can kill all the writers you want – although I wish you wouldn\u2019t. You can also kill the ability of people to practice freedom of speech. But you cannot kill freedom of thought. And this drives them CRAZY. <\/p>\n