Mohammad Rasoulof, the dissident Iranian filmmaker who wrote and directed There Is No Evil and The Seed of the Sacred Fig, is considering returning to his homeland, which he fled last year to avoid an eight-year prison sentence.

On Monday of this week, the City of Locarno presented him with the first Locarno City of Peace Award in recognition of his commitment to peace, diplomacy, and dialogue. Giona A. Nazzaro, the artistic director of the Locarno Film Festival described Rasoulof’s work as a “hymn to human dignity, adding: “And only out of complete respect for human dignity can a renewed spirit of peace arise.”

Rasolouf revealed that he has been working on three scripts over the past thirteen years, the most recent one being a story that really moves me.” The main locations for the films are in Europe and the USA, he said, “but they all have very much to do with Iran.”

 

In 2024, The Seed of the Sacred Fig won a special jury award at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival and was nominated by Germany for an Oscar in the international feature category. Rasolouf has been living in exile in Berlin. While there, he presented a play titled Destination: Origin, which deals with the challenges of retaining one’s own culture while living abroad.

Still, there is some cause for optimism, Rasoulof believes. “The Iran I left is very different from the Iran today,” he told Deadline. “So much has happened since then. When I left, I had an eight-year prison sentence, which would have stopped me from making films for a long time, so I was very keen on staying in Europe and making films. But the situation is so fast-changing in Iran. Now, my ability to return and work as a filmmaker there may actually happen sooner than I was anticipating. The Iranian parliament has just approved a law that abolishes prison sentences for those who had to leave Iran illegally. So the situation has already improved.”

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