Iranian filmmaker Rasoulof temporarily released from prison after 6 months

Iranian filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof, who won the 2020 Berlin Golden Bear for 'There Is No Evil', has been temporarily released from Tehran’s Evin prison. He was arrested last July for criticising the Iranian government on social media.

The 50-year-old director was incarcerated for posting an appeal urging Iranian security forces to stop using force and weapons during May protests that were prompted by a building collapse in the southwestern city of Abadan.

He has now been released for health reasons and is at home, according to several reports coming from the region. The director’s lawyer, Maryam Kianersi, told French News Agency AFPT that his incarceration has been suspended only for two weeks due to medical reasons.

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'There Is No Evil' producer Farzad Pak spoke to The Hollywood Reporter and confirmed Rasoulof's temporary release. "Mohammad was released on bail for medical reasons [but] there are still other accusations [against him] that the course hasn’t made a decision on yet,"said Pak. "They [the court] might take him back [into jail] or leave him in limbo."

Rasoulof’s temporary release comes days after filmmaker Jafar Panahi, who is his close friend, was released from Tehran’s Evin prison after announcing he was going on a hunger strike. Panahi is currently out on bail and his case will reportedly be reviewed in March.

Both Panahi and Rasoulof were sentenced to six years in prison in 2011 and were given a 20-year ban on filmmaking for their allegedly spreading "anti-regimepropaganda". Rasoulof’s sentence was later suspended and he was released on bail. However, after the festival tour of his 2017 drama 'A Man of Integrity', which won Cannes’ Un Certain Regard prize for best film, Rasoulof's passport was confiscated and he was forbidden from leaving the country.

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