Iranian filmmaker Asghar Farhadi, sentenced in his country for plagiarism in his film 'A hero'

An Iranian court has ruled that two-time Oscar-winning director Asghar Farhadi committed plagiarism by appropriating the basis of the script for his latest film,

from the documentary

by director Azadeh Masihzadeh, a former student at 2014 of a non-fiction film workshop taught by Farhadi.

Another judge, says

will now determine the punishment that Farhadi will receive, who has no right to appeal.

The ruling finds Farhadi guilty of violating Masihzadeh's intellectual rights, after taking key plot elements from his documentary without referring to them in the credits.

More information

Asghar Farhadi: "The situation in Iran is getting worse every year"

The conviction could lead to Farhadi giving Masihzadeh all of

's earnings from both movie tickets and

according to

The specialized media calculates that the worldwide box office collected by this drama, which is owned by Amazon Studios in the United States, is more than two million euros.

On YouTube you can see the full 2018 Masihzadeh documentary, 44 minutes long and subtitled in English, which effectively illustrates the real story that the film recreates, which occurred in 2012.

Since last summer, when the film premiered at the Cannes festival, a shadow has hung over the career of Iranian filmmaker Asghar Farhadi (Khomeyni Shahr, 49 years old).

From Iran came the echo of the accusation of plagiarism against

with which he would end up winning the Grand Jury Prize of the French contest.

Added to this were constant comments against him, accusing him of lukewarmness, of compatriot directors who are in prison or awaiting trial in Iran.

In that pageant, by the way, Farhadi began to speak much more against the Iranian regime.

Last February, asked by EL PAÍS about this complaint before the premiere in Spain of

, the Oscar winner for

and for

He answered: “I was based on the true story and there was even a television report about the hero shown in my film.

From there, I developed an open concept.

Right now, that claim of plagiarism is being evaluated by two committees of experts.

On the one hand, filmmakers from the Casa de Cine;

on the other, lawyers specializing in copyright.

They are still collecting documentation, there is not even a judicialization of the case.

Days later the case did go to court, when Farhadi denounced her former student for defamation and she responded by denouncing him for plagiarism.

Farhadi has lost both cases.

A hero

is born from a true event: the return of a bag with money by someone who desperately needed that money.

The protagonist of the film, Rahim, is released from prison, where he is due to a debt that he has not been able to repay, with a two-day permit.

In those 48 hours he must convince his creditor, his ex-brother-in-law, to withdraw his claim.

But things are not going well with him or with a bag of money that Rahim's partner finds with an amount that would save him, the return of which receives a crazy media echo.

According to Farhadi, the filmmaker read the story of the bag in a newspaper and began writing the script.

According to the court ruling, he saw

and copied the plot.

Iranian filmmakers such as Jafar Panahi and, above all, Mohammad Rasoulof have repeatedly accused Farhadi of being complacent with the lukewarm regime (interestingly, all three have won the Golden Bear).

Rasoulof directed this sentence to Farhadi: “We live a war and we are all soldiers.

Or on one side or the other”;

The aforementioned told EL PAÍS: “The situation is not improving.

On the contrary.

Over the years, the situation in my country has worsened.

All of us who live in Iran and suffer this pressure, end up affected.

No one gets off."

And he underlined: “We fight against restrictions, we create despite difficulties and obstacles.

Of course, the more that pressure increases, the stronger we fight.

One way or another, we struggled to make movies."