The multi-award-winning Iranian director, who fled Iran clandestinely to escape a lengthy prison sentence, is presenting his latest film, 'The Seed of the Sacred Fig,' in competition on Friday.

By Laurent Carpentier

Le Monde

He has lost none of his energy. Built rough, with a dull complexion and graying hair, Mohammad Rasoulof came to our meeting place on Thursday, May 23, in the middle of the Palais des Festivals in Cannes, alone, anonymous, smiling beneath his drawn, intact features. "I didn't want to go back to prison," he summed up. "I have been before. I was in solitary confinement for 40 days in a room as big as this sofa. Then in cells not much bigger. No physical torture – they avoid it with people who have access to the media – but other things like not letting you go to the toilet for hours, which means you don't dare eat or drink... And then I've been in prisons where you're practically free to move around. I've seen some amazing things. Thieves who had had their fingers cut off because that's the penalty under Islamic law. They have a kind of little guillotine for that. Except that immediately afterwards they send the convicts to hospital to have them transplanted again. Because, while Islam says you have to cut them off, it doesn't say you can't glue them back on. They send them back to prison with their grafts. Some take, others don't. They're all there with their bandages..." >>>