In Cannes, Iran’s Abbas Kiarostami urges release of fellow filmmaker

Iran’s Kiarostami calls for filmmaker to be freed

CANNES, France — Though his new film is set outside his native Iran and features a largely French and British cast, Abbas Kiarostami had the Islamic Republic on the brain Tuesday.

The celebrated director opened a news conference at the Cannes Film Festival — where his new film “Certified Copy” is in competition — with a plea for the release of detained director Jafar Panahi and a frank discussion of the difficulties of making movies in Iran.

“For a long time, the Iranian government has put a spoke in the wheel of independent filmmakers. That’s my case and the case of Jafar Panahi,” said Kiarostami, who has been making movies for about four decades. Independent directors in Iran “live under constant pressure and cannot do their jobs.”

Panahi was taken into custody on March 1 by Iranian security forces during a raid on his Tehran home. A state prosecutor has said Panahi’s detention is not political and that the filmmaker is suspected of committing unspecified “offenses.”

“The fact that a director is imprisoned is in and of itself intolerable,” Kiarostami said. “When one puts an artist in prison, it’s art itself that’s imprisoned, and for that reason, we must act.”

At one point during emotional the news conference, French actress Juliette Binoche, who stars in “Certified Copy” and was seated next to Kiarostami, teared up.

In “Certified Copy,” Binoche plays a French woman who goes on what appears to be a first date with a British writer. Tensions quickly erupt between the two and eventually we start to suspect that these two may actually know each other — and perhaps had once been married.

It’s an enigmatic story that becomes increasingly engrossing as it unfolds.

Set in Tuscany, “Certified Copy” is one of just a handful of films Kiarostami has made outside Iran.

The movie is one of 19 films competing for the Palme d’Or. Kiarostami’s “Taste of Cherry,” a mysterious tale about a man seeking someone to help him commit suicide, took the festival’s top prize in 1997.

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