Cannes: Asghar Farhadi Talks Being Impacted by Iran War

Two-time Oscar winning and Cannes lauded filmmaker Asghar Farhadi expressed this morning how he continues to be jolted by the atrocities in his home country of Iran which remains at war with the U.S.

Farhardi was specifically asked about by a journalist about working without limits on his latest production in France; if he had made this film in Iran he would have been sentenced.

The filmmaker didn’t answer the question per se, rather expressed:

“Over the last few months when I was busy with the post-production, two tragic events occurred in Iran. I was in Tehran last week, and the impact of these events are still with me. One of these events was the death of a number of innocent people, children, members of the Civilian population who died in the war. Before this war, we had a death of number of demonstrators who went to the streets to protest. These two events are extremely painful and will not be forgotten.”

“To feel empathy for people who were killed, demonstrators who were shot doesn’t mean you can’t feel empathy for those who died because of the bombing. Any murder is a crime. Under no circumstances can I accept the fact that another human being should lose his or her life be it war, executions, be it massacres of demonstrators,” exclaimed Farhadi

Farhadi‘s fifth feature in Cannes is loosely inspired by director Krzyszof Kieslowski’s 10- hour television series Dekalog, specifically Episode Six about a lovestruck man who is spying on the neighboring woman in an apartment across the street. In Farhadi’s version it’s a novelist, Sylvie (Isabelle Huppert), who is the peeping with her telescope at three people across the Paris avenue. Deadline’s chief film critic called the movie “a keeper, tales well told.”

Farhadi said he wasn’t wowed when he was first pitched the idea of doing another take of the Dekalog, specifically as a series. It was the series original scribe, who Farhadi met with, Krzysztof Piesiewicz, who convinced him to adapt an episode for the big screen. Moments before last night’s world premiere, Farhadi received a text that Piesiewicz had died. “That’s what’s haunted my mind since last night,” said Farhadi this morning.

Farhadi’s previous movie here at Cannes, A Hero, took the Grand Prix in 2021. His 2011 A Separation and 2016 The Salesman, both went on to win the Best Foreign Language (now International) Feature Academy Award. His most recent film, A Hero, took the Grand Prix in Cannes in 2021.