Heads of the European film sector have spoken in unison condemning the imminent incarceration of Iranian filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof. The director of the 2020 Berlinale Golden Bear winner There is No Evil, a film that casts a critical eye on the consequences of life under authoritarian rule, has been summoned by the Special Prosecutor’s Office for Offenses Relating to Media and Culture to serve one year in prison.
This comes after the Iranian Revolutionary Court sentenced the filmmaker (pictured, above) to one year in prison, with a two-year prohibition against working as a director, for alleged propaganda against the government, in July 2019. The internationally acclaimed Rasoulof, an Un Certain Regard winner for his films Lerd (2017) and Au Revoir (2011), is also under a two-year ban on leaving the country and becoming involved in any social or political activity.
"Summoning me to serve my prison sentence only reveals a small fraction of the intolerance and anger that is characteristic of the Iranian regime’s response to criticism,” Rasoulof says. “Many cultural activists are in prison for criticizing the government." He also points out that Iranian prisons are a hotbed for the Covid-19 virus, with conditions unlikely to change under the current regime. “These conditions call for an immediate response from the international community," he says. (Pictured, right; Baran Rasoulof, daughter of the director, and Ehsan Mirhosseini in There is No Evil).
Via a press statement, President of the European Film Academy, Wim Wenders, declared, "Our colleague Mohammad Rasoulof is an artist who keeps telling us about a reality we would otherwise know little about. There is No Evil is a deeply humane portrait of people in extreme situations, situations no human should be forced to experience. We need voices like that of Mohammad Rasoulof, voices defending human rights, freedom and dignity." (Pictured, left; actress Baran Rasoulof at the Berlin Film Festival, with her father and director on the phone, following his Golden Bear win).
Ulrich Matthes, President of the Deutsche Filmakademie, adds “His deeply humane films about freedom and oppression have reached so many people worldwide. He is a representative master of Iranian cinema: a rich film culture that has provided us with some of the most compelling stories about the human condition. Mohammad Rasoulof’s films not only tell us about life in Iran but also speak to us in the universal language of cinema to promote empathy and peace."
The European voices are also demanding Rasoulof’s health and safety be ensured and that film festivals, cinema chains and all artists globally make their protestations known to Iranian officials and embassy staff in their region.
Pawel Pawlikowski’s Cold War earned top honours at the 31st European Film Awards (EFA), held on December 15 in Seville, Spain. The Polish filmmaker’s tragic love story, loosely based on the turbulent and rebellious life led by his parents, took home five of the top categories before a live audience of 1,600 guests and industry figures at the historic Teatro de la Maestranza.
In addition to the Best European Film award, the Polish/French/U.K. co-production secured Best Director and Best Screenwriter trophies for Pawlikowski (pictured, above), returning to the winner’s podium for the first time since 2014, when his film Ida dominated the ceremony. “I’d like to thank my parents for living a disastrous and ultimately beautiful life,” said the 61 year-old filmmaker, who also acknowledged the unified front represented by those present. “Today we celebrate our differences, we unite in our diversity. Europe is not one voice, but a choir of different voices.”
Slated as Poland’s entry in the Best Foreign Film Oscar category, the monochromatic drama also won Best Actress for Joanna Kulig, and Best Editing for Jarosław Kamiński. The EFAs add to a growing list of accolades for Cold War that include the Cannes Film Festival Best Director award and the Best Foreign Film honour from America’s National Board of Review.
The film was denied an EFA clean sweep when leading man Tomasz Kot lost to Marcello Fonte for his understated performance in Matteo Garrone’s Dogman. which also found favour in the Costume and Hair & Make-Up categories. Martin Otterbeck won Best Cinematographer for the Norwegian drama Utøya: July 22, a harrowing survival tale based upon the mass shooting at the political summer camp in 2011.
Other winners included Lukas Dhont’s Girl for European Discovery; Jane Magnusson’s Bergman- A Year in a Life for Best Documentary; Another Day Of Life from directors Damian Nenow and Raúl De La Fuente for Best Animated Feature; Andrey Ponkratov for his production design on Summer (Leto); sound designers André Bendocchi-Alves and Martin Steyer for the German film The Captain; and, visual effects veteran Peter Hjorth for his work on Ali Abbasi’s Border.
Honorary EFAs were bestowed upon beloved Spanish actress Carmen Maura, who received the Lifetime Achievement Award, and Oscar-winning Greek auteur Costa-Gavras (Z, 1969; Missing, 1982), who accepted the EFA Honorary Award. The audience-voted People’s Choice EFA went to Luca Guadagnino’s coming-of-age romance Call Me By Your Name.
The shadow cast by the United Kingdom’s ‘Brexit’ movement was addressed by two of the most respected and outspoken statesmen of Britain’s film community. Upon receiving the Best European Comedy award for The Death of Stalin, writer/director Armando Iannuci earned big laughs when he stated, “This is a European film. I’m Scottish/Italian, shot mostly in England, were financed by the French, did a lot of our post-production in Belgium. It just shows what a good idea it is if different countries in Europe come together to work with the British. Let’s call it a European community, a European union. I’m going to take the idea back to the United Kingdom this evening.”
Past Best Actor EFA winner Ralph Fiennes (Sunshine, 1999), present to accept the honorary European Achievement in World Cinema award, was harsher in his condemnation of his homeland’s current political climate. “Can I be English and European? Emphatically yes. There is a crisis in Europe and our feeling of family, of connection and of shared history, shared wounds - this feeling is threatened by a discourse of division. In England now, there is only the noise of division.”
In line with the sense of celebration central to the kudocast, Fiennes ended on a hopeful note. “But the expression in a film can be a window for us to see another person, another human experience,” he said. “We can celebrate our differences of custom and common humanity at the same time.”
Even the most ardent supporter of Romanian cinema would concede that the nation’s film output, which averages about 15 features a year, adheres to a pretty dour aesthetic. The exception that proves the rule may be a film like Radu Muntean’s Boogie, a 2008 charmer about three men who wish themselves back to their high school days, but overall Romanian cinema reflects a society of artists still ruminating on the atrocities of recent regimes and the struggle of both its urban and rural population to cope with the commercial realities of the new Europe.
(Pictured, above; Radu Jude's Everybody in Our Family, 2012)
Like much of Europe, the new invention of the Lumiere Brothers premiered in Romania before the turn of the century. An employee of the French pair, Paul Menu, filmed the first footage on Romanian soil, a newsreel that captured King Carol 1 atop his steed and leading The Royal Parade in May, 1897. As the new medium became further established, young filmmakers emerged and the silent shorts began to accompany the newsreel footage. Also, filmed theatrical productions, such as Nicolae Barbelian’s Păpuşa (The Doll, 1911) and Victor Eftimiu’s Dragoste la mănăstire (Love in a Monastery, 1911), began to introduce audiences to cinematic storytelling techniques.
Considered many to be the first significant filmmaker to emerge from the birth of Romanian cinema was Grigore Brezeanu, whose short fictional films Amor fatal (Fatal Love Affair, 1911), Înşir'te mărgărite... (Spread Yourselves, Daisies, 1911) and the feature-length epic Independenţa României (The Independence of Romania, 1912; pictured, right) would be the country’s first major works of international standing. Only 20 when he directed Independenţa României, Brezeanu’s premature passing from typhoid in the post-World War 1 epidemic robbed a nation of an extraordinary talent. The financier of the film, Leon Popescu, was flushed with profits from its success and established the nation’s first production company, Film de artă Leon Popescu (Leon Popescu Art Film), resulting in a range of commercially-viable films that helped establish the Romanian film community - Amorul unei prinţese (The Love Affair of a Princess, 1913), Răzbunarea (Revenge, 1913), Urgia cerească (The Sky-borne Disaster, 1913), Cetatea Neamţului (The German's Citadel, 1914) and Spionul (The Spy, 1914). Aristide Demetriade directed two films of note - Oţelul răzbună (Steel Takes Its Revenge) and Scheci cu Jack Bill (Sketch with Jack Bill), both in 1913 – but the First World war would decimate the exhibition and film production sectors, rendering the industry inactive.
(Above: Scenes from Jean Mihail's 1924 drama, Păcat (Sin)
It was not until Jean Mihail returned to his homeland in the mid 1920’s that the industry would find the impetus to resurrect its film culture. He first came to prominence as co-director (with German Alfred Hallm) of Ţigăncuşa din iatac (The Little Gypsy Girl in the Bedroom, 1923), then helmed such significant works as Păcat (Sin, 1924), Manasse (Manasseh, 1925), Lia (1927) and Povara (The Burden, 1928). The resurgent industry fostered such talents as Ion Şahighian (Năbădăile Cleopatrei /Cleopatra's Caprices, 1925; Simfonia dragostei /The Symphony of Love, 1928), Ghiţă Popescu (Vitejii neamului /The Bravest of Our People, 1926; Năpasta /The Calamity, 1927) and Niculescu Brumă (Ecaterina Teodoroiu, 1929).
In 1930, the era of the talkie was launched in Romania, with German director Martin Berger adapting the culturally significant novel Ciuleandra in 1929. Most films being shot in Romania over this period were financed, wholly or in part, by visiting producers – it was not until Bing-Bang (1934), a vaudevillian-style collection of skits and musical numbers featuring a collection of the nation’s most popular performers, that a fully-Romanian feature would hit the screen. The beginning of the sound era was problematic for Romanian cinema. Foreign films, each one of higher production standards than the last, flooded the market and pushed true Romanian cinema into the background. Only 16 films were made in the country in the 1930’s.
To stop the decline in the cinema culture, the government established the New Cinema Fund in 1934. A percentage of all foreign film ticket sales would be channelled into the local industry, resulting in a steady flow of nationalistic films – Mihail’s documentary România (Romania, 1937); Şahighian’s O noapte de pomină (An Unforgettable Night, 1939); Paul Călinescu’s Venice-prizewinning documentary Ţara Moţilor (1938; pictured, right); Jean Georgescu’s O noapte furtunoasă (A Stormy Night, 1942) and Visul unei nopţi de iarnă (A Winter Night's Dream, 1944); and Cornel Dumitrescu’s Pădurea îndrăgostiţilor (The Lovers' Forest, 1946). Though the Second World War raged around them and many of the nation’s film technicians were forced to work on propaganda film projects, the passion of the filmmaking community kept Romanian cinema active in these years.
Following communist occupation in 1948, the Romanian film industry as the free-thinking creator of narrative, fictional films, all but ceased to exist. The people and resources that the National Film Fund had brought to prominence were now at the mercy of a ruling party that saw the film sector as the tool of the political body. Films espousing the communist dogma lead to a period of social realism in Romanian film – directors who would play influential roles in the decades to come, such as Manole Marcus (La mere, 1953), Geo Saizescu (Doivecini, 1958), Iulian Mihu (Jocurile copilariei, 1955) and Gheorghe Vitanidis (Ciulinii Baraganului, 1958), emerged from this period. This was also the era of the great Romanian animator Ion Popescu-Gopo, who would produce 15 short works in 1955 and win the Palme d’Or at Cannes in 1957 for Scurtă istorie (A Short History).
(Above: Ion Popescu-Gopo's Scurtă istorie/A Short History, 1957)
Through the 1960’s, Romanian filmmakers, inspired by the New Wave mentality sweeping European cinema, began to slyly subvert the Communist doctrine. Mihai Iacob’s Darclee (1961), Lucian Bratu’s Tudor (1962), the legendary Lucien Pintilie’s Duminica la ora 6 (Sunday at Six, 1965), Cannes Best Director winner Liviu Ciulei’s Pădurea spânzuraţilor (Forest of the Hanged, 1964) and Mircea Mureşan’s Cannes-honoured debut Răscoala (1965) were all instrumental in a noticeable shift away from the state-sanctioned cinema of social realism and political message.
This revolutionary tone, however subtle, fuelled a passionate industry that blossomed in the 1970’s – a period that many refer to as Romanian cinema’s own New Wave. Out of the film school culture that had flourished in the 1960’s came directors that would represent Romanian cinema well into the 1980’s and in the final years of the Communist rule - Dan Pita (Nunta de piatra/The Stone Wedding, 1972; Bietul Ioanide/Poor Ioanide, 1979; Rochia alba de dantela /The White Lace Dress, 1989), Mircea Veroiu (Duhul aurului/Lust for Gold, 1974; Dincolo de pod/Beyond the Bridge, 1975; Sfarsitul noptii /The End of the Night, 1982) and Mircea Daneliuc (Cursa/The Long Drive, 1975; Croaziera / The Cruise, 1983; Glissando, 1985; Senatorul melcilor/The Snail’s Senator, 1995). There work led to a relative surge in production activity that saw 8 vital films released in the early 1990’s, among them acclaimed works by Bogdan Dumitrescu (Unde la soare e frig / Where The Sun Runs Cold, 1991; pictured, right), Florin Codre (Sobolanii rosii/The Red Rats, 1990), George Busecan (Pasaj, 1990) and Nae Caranfil (E pericoloso sporgersi/Don’t Lean Out of the Windows, 1993; Asfalt tango/Asphalt Tango, 1996; Filantropica/Philanthropy, 2002).
It took Romanian cinema 100 years but, in the 2000’s, the ‘Golden Age’ had arrived. This period also established the reputation that Romanian films have for their bleakness, though what now seems indicative of Romanian cinema was the point of difference a decade ago that made the film culture of the region stand out. After impacting the international festival circuit with Cristi Puiu’s Marfa si banii (Stuff and Dough, 2001), Cristian Mungiu's Occident (Accident, 2002) and Radu Muntean’s Furia (Fury, 2002), the global critical community rallied behind Puiu’s 2005 breakout hit, Moartea domnului Lazarescu (The Death of Mr. Lazarescu), earning the film the Un Certain Regard honour at Cannes and over 20 other international awards. Momentum was with Romanian cinema – Ruxandra Zenide’s Ryna(2005) enjoyed domestic and arthouse success and made a star of the stunning Doroteea Petre; in 2006, Corneliu Porumboiu’s A fost sau n-a fost (12:08 East of Bucharest) won Cannes’ Camera d’Or;in 2007, Cristian Nemescu's posthumous California Dreamin' won the prize in the Un Certain Regard section, while Christian Mungiu's abortion drama Patru luni, trei saptamâni si doua zile(4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days; pictured, right) received the Palme d'Or. Other significant works from this time include the fresh output from Lucian Pintilie, including Afternoon of the Torturer (2001) and Niki and Flo (2003).
After a lean 2008, when domestic box office saw a dip in audience acceptance of Romanian films for the first time in many years, new works byCorneliu Porumboiu (Police Adjective, 2009) and Florin Şerban (Eu când vreau să fluier, fluier /If I Want to Whistle, I Whistle, 2010) have scored big at home and abroad. Most recently, Calin Netzer’sChild's Pose (Pozitia copilului) took Golden Bear honours in Berlin while Romanian cinema welcomed the found-footage horror genre to its industry with Adrian Tofei’s Be My Cat: A Film for Anne, a brutal shocker that won Best Film at Sydney’s A Night of Horror Film Festival in 2015. Other notables include Cristi Piui's Cannes 2016 competition title, Sieranevada; Christian Mungui's Graduation (2016), Radu Jude's Aferim! (2015), and Alexabdra Belc's vital doco Cinema, Mon Amour (2016), which provides insight into the struggle of the independent cinema owner in modern Romania.
Key Events: KINOFEST International Digital Film Festival – Bucharest, Romania; October. The first digital film festival in Romania, Kinofest’s aim is to promote the film, music and vis-art of the region’s young film-makers. Festival director Valentin Partenie also hopes to cultivate interest in and promote the arts and media culture among the general public through independent film, video and new media making. Kinofest includes 3 competitions (Animation, Fiction, Micromovie), with 3 distinct juries. Expanding into a weeklong event in 2010, the 4th edition of Kinofest will enhance its film content programme and create more social-networking events (such as concerts, expositions and seminars) www.kinofest.com
Contact: Romanian Film Commission Asociatia pentru Promovarea Filmului Romanesc Popa Soare St 52 Et 1 Ap 4 Bucharest 2 Tel: (+40) 21 326 02 68 Eml: info@romfilmpromotion.ro Web: www.romfilmpromotion.ro
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Wednesday, March 11, 2020 at 8:41AM 
"Summoning me to serve my prison sentence only reveals a small fraction of the intolerance and anger that is characteristic of the Iranian regime’s response to criticism,” Rasoulof says. “Many cultural activists are in prison for criticizing the government." He also points out that Iranian prisons are a hotbed for the Covid-19 virus, with conditions unlikely to change under the current regime. “These conditions call for an immediate response from the international community," he says. (Pictured, right; Baran Rasoulof, daughter of the director, and Ehsan Mirhosseini in There is No Evil). 
Via a press statement, President of the European Film Academy, Wim Wenders, declared, "Our colleague Mohammad Rasoulof is an artist who keeps telling us about a reality we would otherwise know little about. There is No Evil is a deeply humane portrait of people in extreme situations, situations no human should be forced to experience. We need voices like that of Mohammad Rasoulof, voices defending human rights, freedom and dignity." (Pictured, left; actress Baran Rasoulof at the Berlin Film Festival, with her father and director on the phone, following his Golden Bear win).
