Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof banned from attending Cannes Film Festival 2024; here's everything you need to know

Once again, an Iranian director – Mohammad Rasoulof – was stopped from attending Cannes Film Festival. The annual festival begins on May 14 and ends on May 25.

In what seems like an annual ritual, dissident Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof has been banned by Teheran from attending the Cannes Film Festival, where his latest work, The Seed of the Sacred Fig, is vying for the top Palme d'Or. The Festival begins on May 14.

Mohammed prohibited from attending Cannes 2024

Iranian authorities ban crew of film by Mohammad Rasoulof from attending Cannes Film Festival 2024.

Iran's decision came on Thursday, and it has been regularly imposing such harsh and punitive punishment on directors and actors, who have been critical of its administration. Last year, Rasoulof who was to have served on the Cannes Un Certain Regard jury could not because of travel restrictions imposed on him.

These curbs followed his Golden Bear win at 2020 Berlin, where he showed his work, There Is No Evil, a scathing criticism of capital punishment. But it was his subsequent denouncement of the government crackdown on nationwide protestors that saw him jailed. He was temporarily freed in 2023 because of ill health. He was later pardoned, but a travel ban was slapped on him.

Jafar Panahi was also barred from leaving Iran

Although he was initially placed under house arrest, the rules of his sentence were subsequently relaxed. He can now move freely within Iran. But a 20-year ban on travelling abroad remains. Also, he cannot speak to the media or make movies.

But can anyone stop Panahi, a man who breathes cinema. He has made at least three films surreptitiously since the ban was imposed. In 2018, his Three Faces competed for the Palme d'Or at Cannes. He shot two more movies secretly: This is Not a Film, a 2011 documentary detailing his house arrest, and the 2013 Closed Curtain.

The documentary was smuggled into the Cannes Film Festival in a USB flash drive, which was hidden inside a cake! What seemed equally cheeky was the way he shot Taxi in 2015, and got the docu-fiction to play at Berlin, where it won the top Golden Bear. Dressed as a cabbie, he placed a small camera on the dashboard of his taxi and took in passengers in Tehran – right under the nose of the ruling clergy. He recorded their variedly interesting conversations and made a movie out of them. And gave it an equally cheeky title, This is Not a Film.