Iran Bars Filmmaker From Travel to London Fest ‘Over Support for Protests’
An Iranian filmmaker said the Islamic republic barred him from travelling to the London Film Festival over his support for the protest movement sparked by the death of Mahsa Amini that he called a “great moment in history.” “I was prevented by the Iranian authorities from boarding my flight to London on Friday,” Mani Haghighi said in a video message to festival-goers tweeted by the British Film Institute (BFI). “They gave me no reasonable explanation for this actually rude behavior.” Outrage over Amini’s death on Sept. 16, three days after she was arrested by Iran’s notorious morality police, has fueled the biggest wave of street protests and violence seen in the country for years. In response, the clerical state’s security forces have waged a brutal crackdown that has claimed the lives of dozens of protesters as well as a campaign of mass arrests of artists, dissidents, journalists and sports stars. The BFI said Haghighi had been due to attend the London Film Festival for his latest film Subtraction, but the Iranian authorities “confiscated his passport and he could not leave.” In the video message, the 53-year-old Iranian director, writer and actor said he believed the authorities had prevented him from …