Mohammad Rasoulof and Jafar Panahi, two leading Iranian filmmakers whose movies are critical of the government, have just issued a statement expressing their concern for the safety of the anti-regime protesters in Iran.
Iranian protesters have been taking to the streets to demonstrate against the Islamic Republic government for over two weeks. Recently, the government shut down the Internet, so it is increasingly hard to get information out about what is happening on the ground. Dozens were reported killed before the Internet shutdown, and thousands were detained. Many fear these numbers may have increased dramatically in the past few days.
“Experience has shown that resorting to such measures is intended to conceal the violence inflicted during the suppression of protests,” Panahi and Rasoulof said in a statement released to Deadline.com. “We are deeply concerned for the lives of our fellow citizens, our families, and our colleagues and friends who, under these circumstances, have been left defenseless.”
Iranian filmmakers face regime repression
Rasoulof and Panahi are two of Iran’s leading filmmakers, and both have been arrested and given lengthy prison sentences several times.
Upon their release, they continued to make movies in secret. Panahi’s latest film, It Was Just an Accident, won the Palme d’Or, the top prize, at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival and is considered the favorite to win an Oscar in the 2026 Best International Feature Category.
The film was submitted to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences by France, because it has French co-producers, rather than by Iran. Panahi is abroad promoting the movie, but in December, he was sentenced in absentia to a year in prison in Iran for “propaganda activities.” If he were to return home, he would be banned from traveling abroad again.
Rasoulof has had a similar history of bucking the regime and being persecuted by it. In May 2024, after it was announced that his film, The Seed of the Sacred Fig, had been chosen for the main competition at the Cannes Film Festival, he was sentenced by the Islamic Republic to whipping, eight years in prison, and a large fine. Rasoulof managed to flee to Germany and attend Cannes, where the film won five awards, including the Jury Special Prize, and it also received an Oscar nomination.
The leading actress in the film, Soheila Golestani, was not allowed to travel to the Oscars in 2025 and was sentenced to 74 lashes and a year in prison for appearing in a movie so critical of the government.
THE TWO directors also said in their statement, “In recent days, following the presence of millions of Iranians in the streets protesting against the Islamic Republic, the government has once again resorted to its most blatant tools of repression. On the one hand, the Iranian regime has cut off communication routes inside the country – the Internet, mobile phones, and landlines – severing people’s ability to communicate with one another; and on the other hand, it has completely blocked all means of contact with the outside world.
“We call on the international community, human rights organizations, and the independent media to immediately find ways to facilitate access to vital information in Iran by enabling communication platforms, and monitor what is happening in Iran. History bears witness that silence today will have regretful consequences in the future.”
While Panahi and Rasoulof are the highest-profile filmmakers to face this kind of persecution from the regime, many other directors have been arrested, imprisoned, and threatened by the government. Dozens of moviemakers have left the country, and others have served prison terms. One example of many is the case of the filmmakers Maryam Moghaddam and Behtash Sanaeeha, who received a 14-month suspended jail sentence from an Iranian court in April 2025 because their 2024 film, My Favourite Cake, was alleged to feature “obscene content.”
The movie tells the story of a 70-year-old widow who falls in love with an elderly cab driver, and in some scenes, she removes her hijab when she is in her apartment. The two main characters, who are not married, dance together in another scene. This is considered obscene content in Iran. The two directors were refused permission to attend the Berlin International Film Festival when the film premiered there.
While thousands who work in Hollywood and the international film industry, including A-list actors such as Emma Stone, Javier Bardem, and Susan Sarandon, have raised their voices in support of Palestinians and have pledged to boycott Israeli films and filmmakers, this group has stayed almost completely silent regarding the current protests in Iran.
While 380 actors and filmmakers signed a letter condemning the Cannes Film Festival in 2025 for not releasing a statement condemning Israel over the war in Gaza, the signatories to that letter have been silent both about the persecution of Iranian filmmakers and the violence against Iranian demonstrators.
In his acceptance speech at Cannes in May when It Was Just an Accident won, Panahi said, “I believe this is the moment to call on all people, all Iranians, with all their differing opinions, wherever they are in the world – in Iran or abroad – to allow me to ask for one thing. Let’s set aside all problems, all differences. What matters most right now is our country and the freedom of our country.”
So far, few artists around the world have taken his words to heart.