Cinema Is Freedom: Mohammad Rasoulof on “The Seed of the Sacred Fig” | Interviews

Leaving behind the more metaphorical language of his earlier films in favor of an incendiary direct address, Mohammad Rasoulof’s “The Seed of the Sacred Fig” is a brave and searing drama about an Iranian family torn apart by theocracy and its repressive mechanisms. Shot entirely in secret, it’s also the last film that Rasoulof was able to make in Iran before being forced to flee his home country. 

Now in theaters, “The Seed of the Sacred Fig” follows a lawyer named Iman (Missagh Zareh), who is promoted to investigating judge in Tehran and soon issued a gun for his own protection. His wife, Najmeh (Soheila Golestani), initially supports Iman’s new role, which provides him with a higher salary, but he’s soon demoralized by corruption at work in the courts. Amid intensifying protests sparked by the death of Mahsa Amini, a young Kurdish-Iranian woman killed in police custody, Iman finds himself at odds with his daughters—21-year-old Rezvan and teenage Sana—who harbor sympathy for the protesters. After his gun goes missing, Iman becomes increasingly paranoid. As the family fractures under the force of his distrust, their anguished domestic drama lays bare larger fault lines in Iranian society, with the conservative father demanding submission and obedience from his more modern-minded daughters while his wife is caught helplessly between them. 

Previously arrested and censured multiple times by the Iranian regime for his pointed critiques of the authoritarian mindset, Rasoulof has repeatedly centered government officials in his work, challenging their complicity in perpetrating state violence. “Manuscripts Don’t Burn” told of the state-sanctioned murder of writers and intellectuals. In “A Man of Integrity,” corruption was so pervasive as to permeate even a rural farmer’s daily existence. And “There Is No Evil” examined capital punishment in Iran through four stories of individuals tasked with carrying out executions.

Halfway through shooting “Sacred Fig,” Rasoulof learned that Iran’s Revolutionary Court had sentenced him to eight years in prison, plus lashings, on the charge of “propaganda against the regime,” related to his previous films and activism. Rasoulof had already faced prison sentences and film bans and was sent to jail for seven months in 2022 after signing a petition critical of the government; he knew, this time, there would be no possibility of appeal. Rasoulof also anticipated, once the court discovered the existence of “Sacred Fig,” that additional charges would be brought, effectively ending his career. 

And so Rasoulof chose to flee Iran, traveling on foot over dangerous mountain passes; the arduous 28-day journey took him first to Germany, where he now lives in exile, then onto the Cannes Film Festival in France, for the film’s premiere. There, he held up pictures of actors Zareh and Golestani, both of whom were prevented from leaving Iran to attend the premiere; “The Seed of the Sacred Fig” was later awarded a Special Jury Prize, in addition to the FIPRESCI Prize. It’s also Germany’s Oscar-shortlisted submission for Best International Feature, with official nominations to be announced Jan. 17.

Earlier this week, Rasoulof spoke, with the assistance of interpreter Dr. Sheida Dayani, about the relationship between his filmmaking and the restrictions imposed on him through his career, cameras and guns as instruments of power, and the roots of his desire to dismantle patriarchy within the family unit. 

This interview has been edited and condensed. 

The films you’ve made have examined authoritarianism in the Iranian regime, but I’m curious if you could tell me about the relationship, as you see it, between the restrictions you’ve faced throughout your career and the films you’ve made as a result—how the former has informed the latter.

The first thing that’s inspiring to me in cinema is freedom. When I watch many of the great works of cinema and compare them to what I see happening in Iranian cinema, I always question how it is that the limitations upon Iranian artists keep becoming greater on a daily basis, given all the censorship they face. The first inspiration I find in cinema is that it is a place of artistic freedom, and so it has become obvious to me that, in all of my films, this limitation constitutes a challenge for me to write about. That idea has followed me throughout my career.

When you make a film under the shadow of fear and censorship, you are doing something more than cinema. I have been trying to resist censorship for years. This resistance created a situation in my filmmaking in which, starting with writing, I was thinking about the limitations in executing my ideas. This was always a problem, but the limitations became increasingly more to the point that, in “The Seed of the Sacred Fig,” the style of storytelling and narration are very much influenced by the limitations. However, it is always important to me that these limitations find a creative outlet in the film rather than causing distress for the audience or giving the impression that the audience must let go of certain standards or turn a blind eye to the film’s shortcomings just because the film was made with limitations. 

I believe fighting these limitations, more than anything, has created a close relationship with resistance through creativity. My sense is that it is not just me in the process of writing but all my colleagues who were affected by it; the actors, the cinematographer, the set designer, the costume designer, etc. We all had to adapt to these limitations in a way that, when the film is seen, the audience thinks less about the fact that it was made under special circumstances.

Your previous film, “There Is No Evil,” was also filmed clandestinely; it focused on the ethical and psychic damage one incurs in perpetrating violence on behalf of state law. That question of personal responsibility is still relevant to “The Seed of the Sacred Fig,” but you further explore the damage one in that position inflicts on others—including, however inadvertently, on their own family. 

In an authoritarian situation, you face ethical questions on a daily basis. You are forced to decide about the truthfulness and untruthfulness of everything. The reason is that cooperating with an authoritarian system does not just affect your life; the decisions you make for yourself can affect other people, even take away the lives of other people. So, when someone submits to an authoritarian situation and becomes devoted to its system, and gradually becomes biased about it, the question is: how could this bias lead to great violence, even against people close to you, not just against those outside your family? You could even become violent against your immediate family. In the history of the Islamic Republic of Iran, there are many examples in which even fathers played a role in the executions of their sons, brothers showed great acts of violence against each other, and members of the same family became in serious opposition to one another.

Through focusing on this family, you expose this growing rift in Iranian society, not simply between parents and children but between fathers and daughters, husbands and wives. How did you approach writing this family’s dynamic, to balance making it real but also representative of Iranian history?

When I was writing this film, my central idea was that I was explaining the relationships between the family members within one family unit. But the more I continued to write, the more I started having questions about the relationship between the family relations and the society and history of Iran, because I was thinking that the main issue in both of those structures was the issue of patriarchy. 

As I was watching the repression in that society and around the world, I was also questioning its relationship with patriarchy, because repression always follows patriarchy. It always follows. And now, in Iran today, we have religious patriarchy and religious repression that continue. I decided to take the story in a direction that would not just summarize family relations, so that I could also make references to this historical suffering. As I was continuing with the family relations, for instance, I realized that the character of Iman would find refuge in his father’s house, which is a symbol of tradition; with the choice of the final location, I could project the story of this family onto the history of Iran. 

To ask about a specific scene, I’m curious about your approach to the confrontation at the dinner table, between Iman and Rezvan, during which he accuses her of being brainwashed by propaganda; she retorts that his decades working for the regime do not mean that he knows better than her, only that he wishes to preserve the structures he works each day to uphold. 

The spark of this film came from a conversation I had with one of the higher officials in prison, who told me that he was quite embarrassed about his job in the regime, whenever he had conversations with his family members and his children. I still always question the lives of people who work in the system, whether or not they tell their family members what they do; and if they do tell their family members, what feelings does that provoke? 

All of those questions led me into writing that scene, which is a scene that highlights the chasm between the characters of the family members and the character of the father. In this scene, the family realizes that he has devoted his past 20 years to presenting reality in another way. Here, because of that, he has arrived at a point of divergence with his family members. 

Various instruments of violence play a role in the story, but direct control of a handgun is central to the plot. Chekhov’s gun as a storytelling device aside, this choice complicates the question of who wields the power to inflict violence. As an investigating judge, Iman is an instrument of the religious government; in his mind, this makes him a righteous extension of God’s will. But once the gun goes missing, that power is threatened.

I believe, in addition to violence, we need to talk about the creation of fear, because the fear of being controlled and placed under surveillance in a society that exists under repression is a very complex feeling. The gun itself is a symbol of power. When the owner of that power believes they are losing control over it, I often think about what new characteristics come out of their personality. 

This is exactly what happens in the relationship between political power and the people of Iran. I believe that how the gun functions in the film is not just about physical acts of violence; it’s about the dissemination of a lack of trust. I believe this has been the biggest tool of the Iranian regime: the act of disseminating lack of trust among people. The regime has always benefited from this dissemination. The same is true in terms of what happens to the structure of the family, and you can see this impacting individual relationships between the members of the family.

Relatedly, the camera plays a complex role in “The Seed of the Sacred Fig”—as a weapon of the regime in recording forced confessions, as a witness to state violence during the protests, as a tool both Iman and the couple in the car use to film each other during their standoff. Tell me about your approach to incorporating the camera into this story, and what power the camera contains. 

This is a very interesting point you raise. When I got out of jail, I realized that the camera itself had the ability to expose, whereas before it had only been a tool of the state, to be used in repressing people; the state would put people in front of the camera and make them provide forced confessions. After social media came into being, however, and after I got out of jail, I realized that people were now using their cameras to expose the truth of what was happening. 

There is a new social development happening here, because while the government does not allow the journalists to take their cameras into the protests and capture any images that show the reality of the situation, people themselves are now using their cameras and taking photos and videos of each other and of themselves, broadcasting it to the world. That then allows the world to know what is happening on the ground.

And this path continues. The images that the government manipulatively presents and the images that people capture on their cameras are in contradiction with one another. This also shows us that the right to make and show content is no longer in the hands of the political power; people have taken matters into their own hands, especially the younger generation, by broadcasting their content to the world.

You had been imprisoned twice before and fled to Germany while making “The Seed of the Sacred Fig” to avoid further prison time. You’ve always drawn inspiration from your surroundings, so I’m curious if you’ve yet had a moment to explore Germany or consider aspects of your life there that might inform your filmmaking. 

I still have not been able to actually experience living in Germany, because I am constantly traveling. Given this, I have not had a chance to settle there, to be able to synchronize with my environment. But I always believe that my stories have come from everyday living experiences, so I am sure that, in the future, there will be something that catches my attention. Of course, first I need to be able to live in one place.

“The Seed of the Sacred Fig” is now in theaters, via Neon.