The Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof was in a Tehran jail when he hit on the idea for his Oscar-nominated film The Seed of the Sacred Fig. He was in solitary confinement for signing a petition criticising his country’s government. The ‘Woman Life Freedom’ protests were sweeping Iran after 22-year-old Mahsa Amini was arrested in September 2022 and beaten to death for not wearing her hijab correctly.
‘I had a chance encounter with a big shot from the prison staff,’ the 52-year-old director explains over Zoom from Germany (he can’t say exactly where he is, after escaping the regime last year, more of which later). ‘He pulled me aside and we had a very short conversation. He told me, in secret, how much he’d come to hate himself . His children kept criticising him at home, asking how he could work in the prison system and bring himself to jail people. He had an intense pang of conscience but didn’t have the courage to leave his job. He said he was thinking about taking his own life. He wanted to hang himself in front of the prison entrance.’
Prison, kidnap and a 28-day mountain escape – what I risked for my Oscar-nominated film
As soon as he left prison after seven months, Rasoulof set about making a film that would celebrate the feminist movement but also explore the effect ‘these brave, strong young women’ were having on their families. The encounter ‘convinced me that, eventually, the women’s movement in Iran will succeed and I wanted to make a new film to help with this effort’.
He shot The Seed of the Sacred Fig in secret in various locations around Iran over 70 days, from the end of December 2023 to March 2024. At the time he was also awaiting his sentence for ‘crimes against the country’s security’ linked to his previous films and his public support of protests. The film’s title refers to a species of fig that spreads by wrapping itself around another tree and eventually strangling it. The storyline follows a naive lawyer Iman, played by Missagh Zareh, who believes the regime is doing everything for the best. At the start of the film he’s promoted, becoming an investigative judge in the Revolutionary Guard Court. He’s delighted, until he learns that his predecessor was sacked for refusing to sign a young man’s death warrant.
As the 2022 protests break out, Iman finds he is signing death warrant after death warrant, with no time even to read the charges. Meanwhile his daughters Rezvan and Sana side with the women burning hijabs and rioting in the street and the focus of the film slowly becomes their story.
‘The dictatorship has always been a patriarchy, so the fight for women’s rights has very deep roots,’ says Rasoulof, whose film uses real smartphone footage from 2022 of protestors being beaten and chased in the streets.
‘It forces women to wear a mask, which shows obedience. Just by wearing a hijab you are submitting to the regime every time you leave the house. This young generation has completely ripped off the mask, saying very clearly, “I want my rights, starting from the most basic aspect of my daily life.” For me, Sana represents the young generation of Iran that took us all by surprise with its courage and its refusal to hide.’
Mohammad Rasoulof fled Tehran (above) in 2024
The subject matter was extremely risky – since he began making films in 2002, Rasoulof has been arrested and jailed many times. In 2010 he was locked up for filming without the correct permit. In 2017 he was banned from leaving the country. That year his film A Man of Integrity, about endemic corruption, won him the prestigious Un Certain Regard award at Cannes – and later another year-long prison sentence.
This time, filming involved a lot of hiding from the authorities, and most of the scenes were shot indoors. The footage was smuggled out of Iran to Hamburg, where it was put through post-production. Rasoulof would watch the edits back via WhatsApp. ‘It’s not easy to bring together people who can accept the risks,’ Rasoulof says. ‘During filming, sometimes the fear of being arrested overshadowed the group. Nothing makes the work as difficult as maintaining the crew’s safety. We tried to keep the group small. We also had minimal technical equipment, but the government can’t monitor everything.’
As the film was being edited early last year, Rasoulof’s sentence was finally handed down. He faced eight years in prison, a public flogging, a fine and the confiscation of all his property. But before he could be incarcerated, last April he fled the country, using a network he had learned of in prison which specialises in helping persecuted citizens escape Iran. He left his phone, family, IDs and laptop, crossing mountains in the course of his gruelling 28-day journey.
It’s an extraordinary tale: ferried from one hiding place to the next, travelling along abandoned roads, at one point he was kidnapped by villagers meant to help him escape, until more money changed hands. He was hauled up snowy peaks by two guides who strapped his arms around them when he could climb no further. He won’t confirm details of the route for fear of betraying his helpers, but finally he made it to Germany, claiming asylum, and on 10 May reached Hamburg to finish editing his film.
Most of the cast and crew – including his wife, the producer Rozita Hendijanian – were also able to flee in the weeks that followed. The regime faced so much internal chaos following a helicopter crash in May last year that killed president Ebrahim Raisi, as well as the resulting elections and the escalation of conflict with Israel, that the travel bans they all faced weren’t renewed for a week – giving them a narrow window to find freedom. Only Soheila Golestani, who plays conflicted matriarch Najmeh in the film, remains behind. ‘She’s been subjected to countless interrogations and banned from leaving the country,’ Rasoulof looks down sadly. ‘She is free on bail but banned from working.’
The Seed of the Sacred Fig concerns a Tehran mother and her two anti-regime daughters
Rasoulof can’t return unless the regime falls, but he is not as downcast as I expected. The joy of his films is in the way he shows Iranian life as vibrant, complicated and filled with love. If your image of the country is of repressive burqas and street violence, he will show you its beauty and the warmth of its people. Having travelled there and been stunned by the hospitality and kindness of Iranian people, I tell him I could feel his love for his country spilling out of the screen.
He nods, gives a sad smile and says that exile isn’t so bad. ‘I will miss Iran a great deal, but thanks to technology there’s a way to maintain connections that is much better than, say, 20 years ago. In terms of films, the reason I left is that I had stories I needed to tell, and I couldn’t keep telling them there.’
He feels quite safe, he explains, thanks in part to the film’s success. When I wonder if winning an Oscar will make him a target for the regime’s hit squads, he disagrees: ‘The stronger the voice of the film, the more successful the film is, I think the more it will protect all those involved in its making.’ (When we went to press with this article, we didn’t know if its Oscar nomination for best international feature film would result in a win.)
As the interview comes to an end, I ask him about Craig and Lindsay Foreman, the two British tourists arrested in Iran on espionage charges in January. ‘This unfortunately is a quite common technique in the Islamic Republic – taking hostages,’ he sighs. ‘It’s usually a way to get other countries to release money. But it could be for geopolitical reasons.
‘It certainly will not be easy for this couple. Iranian prisons have absolutely inhumane conditions. Perhaps they will be treated better because they will be telling the world what happened. The hardest thing is keeping your sense of dignity and self-respect. They try to take that away and the consequences tend to be long lasting psychologically.’ He pauses, and adds, ‘I hope we’ll hear good news soon.’
In the end, he says, his hopes are with the women of the nation. ‘Right now, as we speak, women in Iran are protesting against the death penalty,’ he explains. ‘It isn’t reported much outside Iran, but they will not stop protesting. Men are joining them, but the women are unstoppable. It doesn’t matter what the regime does. They will not be silenced.’
The Seed of the Sacred Fig is in cinemas now