Mohammad Rasoulof recently fled Iran – now he is supposed to bring the Foreign Film Oscar to Germany. His film “The Seed of the Sacred Fig Tree” is political and moving.
Only a few months ago he fled to Germany – now he is Germany’s Oscar hope: Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof is to represent Germany in the race for the Oscar for best international film with his film “The Seed of the Sacred Fig Tree”, as German Films, the foreign representative of German film, announced in Munich. He prevailed against a dozen other applicant films.
Film about the political protests in Iran
“The Seed of the Sacred Fig Tree” tells of the effects of political protests in Iran on a family. The film is “the psychological profile of Iran’s theocracy, which is built on violence and paranoia,” said the jury. Rasoulof tells “in a subtle way of the cracks within a family, which are representative of the cracks within Iranian society. A masterfully directed and touchingly acted film that finds scenes that remain.”
The film was mainly produced in Germany and can therefore compete for the country. “The Seed of the Sacred Fig Tree” is not only a politically extremely relevant film, but also a suspenseful and moving one with complex characters.
The secretly filmed work tells of the protests in Iran following the death of the young Kurdish woman Jina Mahsa Amini in September 2022. The situation in the country is told through the tensions within a family.
On one side are the devout father named Iman (Missagh Sareh), who recently started working as an investigator at the Islamic Revolutionary Court, and his wife Najmeh (Soheila Golestani). On the other side are their two teenage daughters who sympathize with the protests.
Awards at the Berlinale and in Cannes
Rasoulof, who received the Golden Bear at the Berlinale in 2020 for his film “There Is No Evil”, is considered a highly critical filmmaker in Iran and has been imprisoned in the past. He was recently sentenced to several years in prison in his home country and secretly left the country in May.
After a few days, he arrived in Hamburg, where his daughter is studying medicine and where, according to producer Mani Tilgner, he himself has lived mainly since 2012. From there, he regularly commuted to Tehran until he was prevented from leaving the country on one of these trips and was subsequently stuck in Iran for several years.
At the Cannes Film Festival, Rasoulof won the Special Jury Prize. At his premiere there in May, the director received the longest standing ovation of this year’s film festival – the enthusiastic audience applauded for over 12 minutes after the credits rolled. Some viewers had tears in their eyes. As soon as he arrived in the cinema – just a few days after he had fled – the director and the rest of the film team were cheered with a standing ovation that lasted for minutes.
Rasoulof and producer react happily
Rasoulof and the film’s producers were delighted that the jury had selected the film as an Oscar entry: “This film, which tells the story of oppression but also of hope and resistance, is the result of a unique collaboration between people from very different life realities and migration histories. It shows how powerful intercultural exchange can be in a free and open society,” they said.
The selection of the German entry is just one of several preliminary stages. The 15-title shortlist for the Foreign Oscar category will be announced on December 17, 2024. The five nominated films will be selected from this shortlist and announced on January 17, 2025. The Oscar ceremony will then take place on March 2, 2025.
In the spring, the German entry “The Teachers’ Room” by Ilker Çatak, which was nominated for best international film, went home empty-handed at the Oscars. The British production “The Zone of Interest” by Jonathan Glazer won the Oscar in that category.
Four German productions have won foreign Oscars so far
Last year, however, the German literary adaptation “All Quiet on the Western Front” by director Edward Berger not only won the Oscar for best international film, but also three more for cinematography, production design and film music.
Only four German productions have won the award for best international film. Apart from “All Quiet on the Western Front”, Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck managed to do this in 2007 with the Stasi drama “The Lives of Others”. In 1980, the film adaptation of the novel “The Tin Drum” by Volker Schlöndorff received this award, and in 2003 “Nowhere in Africa” by Caroline Link.
Source: Stern
I am an author and journalist who has worked in the entertainment industry for over a decade. I currently work as a news editor at a major news website, and my focus is on covering the latest trends in entertainment. I also write occasional pieces for other outlets, and have authored two books about the entertainment industry.
