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Taraneh Alidoosti in Cannes in 2022, where »Leila and her brothers« ran with her in the title role
Photo: Daniel Cole / dpa
The Cannes Film Festival condemns the arrest of Iranian actress Taraneh Alidoosti and calls for her immediate release.
The festival released a statement on the short message service Twitter, in which it pledged its full support to Alidoosti, "in solidarity with the peaceful struggle she is leading for freedom and women's rights".
The 38-year-old was arrested on Saturday evening in connection with the three-month protests.
According to the pro-government news agency Tasnim, she was accused of "spreading false information and supporting counter-revolutionary circles".
This usually carries a long prison sentence.
According to her colleagues, unknown persons broke into Alidoosti's house on Saturday afternoon, confiscated the laptop and other documents and arrested the actress in front of her daughter.
Since then, her father, ex-soccer player Hamid Alidoosti, has been trying to find out which authority issued the arrest warrant, who exactly arrested her and where she is imprisoned.
On Sunday, online reports said she was in the notorious Ewin prison in northern Tehran.
Alidoosti is one of the best paid and internationally most successful Iranian actresses.
Last month she published a photo on her Instagram page of herself without the headscarf that is mandatory in Iran, thus publicly showing solidarity with the new women's movement and the system-critical protests.
In doing so, she jeopardized her career and was therefore praised for her courage at home and abroad.
Solidarity wave at home and abroad
Alidoosti's colleagues expressed their astonishment at how the system could deal so harshly with the country's most famous actress, artist circles said on Sunday.
Alidoosti's arrest sparked a wave of solidarity at home and abroad.
According to online reports, Iranian artists-in-exile have called on numerous international film festival organizers to condemn the arrest.
The Iranian film elite at home and cinema fans are apparently planning to boycott the upcoming Fajr film festival in Tehran.
Minister of Education Mohammed-Mehdi Esmaeili recently said that the festival would take place as planned on February 22, the 44th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution, regardless of the unrest.
Alidoosti's best-known films include the dramas The Salesman and All About Elly, both directed by two-time Oscar winner Asghar Farhadi.
This year she celebrated the premiere of her latest film »Leila's Brothers« at the Cannes Film Festival.
Public showings of the film in Iranian cinemas have been banned by the Ministry of Culture.
Iran threatens to permanently ban WhatsApp and Instagram
At the same time, Iran threatened at the weekend with a permanent ban on the apps WhatsApp and Instagram, which are very popular in the country.
The US Internet company Meta has not yet responded to a letter from the Iranian authorities in early December, in which they called on the company to open a representative office in the country and adapt its guidelines to those of the Islamic Republic.
"If Meta doesn't respond to our letter, this could be the prologue to a permanent ban," Cyber Center boss Abolhassan Firusabadi said in a newspaper interview on Saturday.
System critics see the massive internet restrictions and the blocking of apps as an attempt to prevent the spread of information, images and videos about the nationwide protests.
The demonstrations were triggered by the death of the Iranian Kurd Mahsa Amini.
She died in police custody on September 16 after being arrested by the Morality Police for breaking the Islamic dress code.
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