Iranian director Dariush Mehrjui, 83, and his wife, screenwriter Vahideh Mohammadifar, were found dead last night by their daughter, Mona, who was on her way to visit them at their home in Karaj, about 20 kilometers from Tehran, for dinner on Saturday. The couple was stabbed to death, Iranian state media reported Sunday. Iran's official IRNA news agency quotes judicial official Hossein Fazeli as saying they are investigating alleged stabbing threats to filmmakers made on social media in recent weeks, which Mohammadifar had denounced.
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Mehrjui opened with his second film, The Cow (1969) opened a new era in Iranian cinema. After attending the film program at the University of California, Los Angeles (USA) in the early <>s, the premiere of The Cow, set in an Iranian village suffering the loss of its only cow, kicked off a new, more socially attentive cinema in its country. Immediately afterwards he released his first feature film Abbas Kiarostami and, later, Mohsen Makhmalbaf.
In 1993, he won the Golden Shell at the San Sebastian Film Festival for the film Sara. The drama is a free adaptation of the play A Doll's House, by the Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen, transferred to Iranian society, and harshly criticizes the situation of women in that country. The award was received ex aequo with Principio y fin, by the Mexican Arturo Ripstein.
Among his many later works are more intimate films such as Gaav (1971), with which he won the International Critics' Prize at the Venice Film Festival; Leila (1996), which analyses the different conceptions of marriage in Iran, and Bemani (2002), which premiered in the Un Certain Regard section of Cannes, about provincial women who struggle to lead a normal life in Iran's ultra-conservative society. In addition to the Golden Shell of the Zinemaldia, Mehrjui's many awards include a Silver Hugo at the Chicago International Film Festival in 1998.
Like most Iranian directors, Mehrjui fought against government censorship throughout his career, and was one of the most outspoken critics of Tehran's Islamic regime. Last year, he posted a video criticizing the government for banning the release of his latest film, LA Minor, depicting the confrontation between a father and daughter who wants to play music.