A New Age of Iranian Cinema Is on Display at the Oscars

A wife, wearing a nightgown and her hair uncovered, lies down next to her husband in bed. An older man and woman, drunk on red wine, dance wildly and discuss the complexities of sex and nudity at their age. A distressed young woman navigates the sexual advances of a male employer in a job interview.

These scenes may seem to be simply ordinary life snippets on the big screen. But their existence — in three Iranian films released over the last few years — is nothing short of extraordinary, representing a new era of filmmaking in Iran’s storied cinema.

These movies, and the trend they represent, have gained recognition and accolades internationally. One of them, “The Seed of the Sacred Fig,” written and directed by Mohammad Rasoulof, will compete for best international feature film at the Academy Awards on Sunday.

Mr. Rasoulof, 52, is among a number of prominent Iranian directors and artists who are flouting government censorship rules enforced for nearly five decades since the 1979 Islamic revolution. These rules ban depictions of women without a hijab, the consumption of alcohol, and men and women touching and dancing; they also prevent films from tackling taboo subjects like sex.

In a collective act of civil disobedience and inspired by the 2022 women-led uprising in Iran and many women’s continued defiance of restrictive social laws, Iranian filmmakers say they have decided to finally make art that imitates real life in their country.

“The Women-Life-Freedom movement was a pivotal point in Iranian cinema,” Mr. Rasoulof said, referring to the protests that swept across the country in 2022 after a young woman died in police custody while she was detained for violating mandatory hijab rules.

“Many people, including filmmakers and artists in the cinema industry, wanted to break the chains of censorship and practice artistic freedom,” Mr. Rasoulof said in a telephone interview from Berlin, where he now lives in exile.

Mr. Rasoulof’s thriller drama follows a fictional judge for Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Court confronting the rebellion of his teenage daughters who turn against him as those protests erupt.

The judge’s family drama serves as a metaphor for the larger struggle that is still continuing in Iran, years after the government brutally quashed the protests. Many women still defy the hijab rule, appearing in public without covering their hair and bodies, and young people make clear — by dancing in public spaces, or through their choice of music and clothes — that their lifestyles vastly differ from those of their religiously conservative rulers.

Mr. Rasoulof made the movie without the required governmental approval and licensing, and filmed it in secret. Like all of the daring Iranian films made underground in the last few years, “The Seed of the Sacred Fig” could not be released in Iran and instead was distributed internationally. It is competing in the Oscars as the nominee from Germany, which co-produced it.

Mr. Rasoulof fled Iran in May, just days before the film’s premier at the Cannes Film Festival, and after he was sentenced to eight years in prison and flogging for charges related to his political activism and art. He was previously jailed for eight months in 2022.

Iran’s Revolutionary Court has opened a new criminal case against Mr. Rasoulof, his cast and some members of his crew, charging that the film threatens Iran’s national security and spreads indecency. But he said everyone involved agreed that the risk was worthwhile.

Most of the film’s main cast members have now left Iran, except the leading actress, Soheila Golestani, who is the only one still in the country facing trial in person.

“For me it was more than acting in a movie,” Ms. Golestani, 44, said in an interview from Tehran. “Something like a social responsibility. And of course, presenting a true picture of a woman’s character which never had the opportunity to appear onscreen.”

For actresses, the risks are magnified. Simply letting their hair show in public or in front of the camera amounts to breaking the law. But a number of famous actresses have announced that they will no longer wear hijabs in films, a stand that risks limiting their casting options and incurring the wrath of the government. It has forced some into exile.

Vishka Asayesh, a 52-year-old beloved movie star, left Iran in the summer of 2023 after a run-in with intelligence agents over her support of the protests.

“Enough was enough, abiding by the rules felt like a betrayal of my fans and all the young people courageously protesting,” said Ms. Asayesh, who now resides in New York City. “This was my way of participating in the movement for change.”

The struggle between artistic expression and government control is continuing. A new hit Iranian television series, “Tasian,” set in early 1970s during the rule of the Shah, was abruptly canceled this past week and banned from streaming platforms because its female characters showed their hair (the actresses wore wigs) and danced and drank at nightclubs. The show’s director, Tina Pakravan, defied the authorities by making the entire series available on YouTube for free on Friday. She lives in Iran.

“Why should an artist who should be a mirror of his society be forced to emigrate only because he reflects the desired images of his people?” Ms. Pakravan said in a phone interview from Tehran.

The International Coalition for Filmmakers at Risk, which defends artistic freedom and safety, organized a petition recently signed by more than 100 prominent figures in the global film industry for two Iranian filmmakers, a married couple, Maryam Moghadam and Behtash Sanaeeha, who are facing prosecution related to their critically acclaimed movie, “My Favorite Cake.”

“My Favorite Cake” explores a theme in a daring way not seen in Iranian cinema since the revolution. A man and woman, in their 70s and burdened with loneliness, spend one impromptu romantic night together. They drink wine, dance and discuss sex and their insecurities about stripping bare. In one scene the lead actress, Lili Farhadpour, sprays perfume under her skirt, anticipating sexual intimacy.

“It was time to show the real life of a large portion of Iranian society — the way they go about their days, they way they love and act,” said Ms. Moghadam, 52, in a telephone interview from Tehran.

She and her husband wrote the screenplay two years before the women-led protests that catalyzed so many other directors. Their film has since been screened around the world and has won 17 international prizes, including the jury prize at Berlin International Film Festival and the new director competition at the Chicago International Film Festival.

Like Mr. Rasoulof, they, too, face charges related to national security and spreading indecency in Revolutionary Court that could result to years in prison, and have been barred from leaving the country, working or teaching, they said. Their first trial date is on Saturday.

Mr. Sanaeeha said he hoped that the attention at the Academy Awards on Mr. Rasoulof’s film would result in more support for independent Iranian filmmakers, and that the Academy would change its rules that require international films to be nominated by the government of the country in which they were produced. The rule, he said, effectively shuts out the new wave of groundbreaking Iranian movies.

“Every filmmaker dreams of making movies in their own country,” Mr. Sanaeeha said. “We have never seen our movie on a big screen in the theater or with an audience.”

Leily Nikounazar contributed reporting.