Mohammad Rasoulof, a 51-year-old independent Iranian filmmaker, has long been subject to constant harassment by the authorities in his country. Interrogations, threats, passport confiscation, film bans, imprisonment: he has experienced it all. On May 8, he learned that he had been sentenced to eight years in prison for criminal offences. “state security”. He clandestinely left the country for Germany, which offered him asylum. After being screened in competition at the Cannes Film Festival in May, his new film, The seeds of the wild fig tree – chronicle of totalitarian thought at the family level – premieres today in France.
How did the idea for this film come about?
I suppose I have been around enough people who serve this system, in interrogations or in prison, that the idea will eventually catch on. But there was also a specific trigger. During my last stay in prison, after the repression of the Women, Life, Freedom movement, we were visited by a group of dignitaries from the regime, and one of them approached me, offered me his pen, and said: “I am sorry to see people like you here. I don’t know what to say to my wife and children who ask me about what we do.”
This is a question we have been asking ourselves for a long time regarding your films or those of Jafar Panahi. How can a filmmaker who finds himself in the crosshairs of a police state continue to make a clandestine film?
You learn to play with your opponent. We watch him as much as he watches us. We are cheating. Directing without being physically on the set is, for example, one of the tricks we use in these types of cases. But Wild fig seeds It was my most difficult project in this sense. Every day I thought it was the last day of shooting. Honestly, I didn’t think I would make it to the end.
You have always been the target of persecution by the Iranian authorities. What motivated the decision to go into exile this time?
In fact, I left Iran for the first time without a return ticket. I made this decision because the repression against me changed shape. I was placed in the category of those who threaten state security. I suddenly became aware, during a previous imprisonment, that I was coming to the end of a journey. And when they brought me confirmation of a new prison sentence, I had just finished the clandestine filming of this movie I had thrown myself into, and I had exactly two hours to figure out what I was doing with my life. What made my decision was the desire to continue telling stories that are close to my heart. So I left this geographical space to embark on a journey that will surely be longer than the previous ones.
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