Iran: filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof briefly released for health reasons

Iranian dissident filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof, imprisoned since July, has been released for two weeks for health reasons, his lawyer announced on Wednesday, January 11 to AFP. The 50-year-old director was arrested on July 8 for encouraging protests sparked after the collapse of a building that killed more than 40 people in May in southwestern Iran. "My client's incarceration has been suspended for two weeks […] and he was released on Saturday," said the director's lawyer, Maryam Kianersi, who did not specify the causes of the hospitalization.

Mohammad Rasoulof won the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival in 2020 with There Is No Evil and was twice awarded at the Cannes Film Festival, for Goodbye and A Man of Integrity. The director had not been able to travel to Germany to receive his prize because of the confiscation of his passport. He had been sentenced to a year in prison but had not yet started serving his sentence. "These days off are not counted in his prison sentence, and he will therefore have to stay in prison for two additional weeks," said his lawyer.