Iran denounced on Monday May 30 the "biased and political" praise made by the Cannes festival of the film
Les Nuits de Mashhad
which tells the story of a serial killer of prostitutes in the Islamic Republic.
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The French festival on Saturday crowned Iranian actress Zar (Zahra) Amir Ebrahimi with the Best Actress award for her role in the thriller directed by Iranian-born Ali Abbasi.
The film traces the journey of the murderer of 16 prostitutes, who during his trial claims to have wanted to cleanse the streets of Mashhad, one of the main holy cities of Shiism, in northeastern Iran.
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The Cinematographic Organization of Iran, affiliated with the Ministry of Culture, strongly criticized the Cannes festival for having
"committed a biased and political act by praising a false and disgusting film",
according to an official statement.
According to the text,
The Nights of Mashhad
presents
“a distorted image of Iranian society and openly insults the transcendent beliefs of the Shiites”
.
According to the Organization, the film
"follows the same path taken by Salman Rushdie in the Satanic Verses",
referring to the British writer of Indian origin and his work.
The founder of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, had deemed the book blasphemous and in 1989 issued a fatwa - a legal opinion given by a specialist in Islamic law on a particular issue - calling for the murder of Mr. Rushdie.
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In
The Nights of Mashhad
, Zar Amir Ebrahimi plays a journalist who tries to unravel the mystery of these murders but is confronted with the machismo of a patriarchal Iranian society.
The actress' career was abruptly interrupted in 2006 due to a sex scandal, forcing her to leave her country for France two years later.