Iranian director Dariush Mehrjui, 83, and his wife, screenwriter Vahideh Mohammadifar, were found dead last night by their daughter Mona, who was planning to visit them for dinner at their home in Karaj, about 20 kilometers from Tehran, this Saturday. The couple was stabbed, Iranian state media reported today, Sunday. The official Iranian news agency IRNA quotes judicial official Hossein Fazeli as saying that they are investigating the alleged knife threats against filmmakers made in recent weeks on social networks and denounced by Mohammadifar.
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With his second film “The Cow” (1969), Mehrjui opened a new era in Iranian cinema. After attending the film program at the University of California in Los Angeles (USA) in the early 1960s, the premiere of “The Cow,” set in an Iranian village suffering from the loss of its only cow, marked the departure of a new, more attentive cinema on social issues in his country. Immediately afterwards, Abbas Kiarostami released his first feature film and later Mohsen Makhmalbaf.
In 1993 he won the Golden Shell at the San Sebastián Festival for the film Sara. The drama is a free adaptation of the play “A Doll’s House” by the Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen, applied to Iranian society, and sharply criticizes the situation of women in this country. The prize was accepted ex aequo with Principle and End by the Mexican Arturo Ripstein.
His many later works include more intimate films such as Gaav (1971), for which he won the International Critics’ Prize at the Venice Festival; Leila (1996), which analyzes the different ideas about marriage in Iran, or Bemani (2002), which premiered in the “Un Certain Regard” section in Cannes, about women from the provinces who struggle to lead a normal life in Iran’s ultra-conservative society. In addition to the Zinemaldia Golden Shell, Mehrjui’s many awards include a Silver Hugo at the Chicago International Film Festival in 1998.
Like most Iranian directors, Mehrjui fought against state censorship throughout his career and was one of the harshest critics of the Islamic regime in Tehran. Last year he released a video criticizing the government for banning the release of his latest film, “LA Minor,” about the confrontation between a father and a daughter who wants to make music.
Regarding the double murder, Hamid Hadavand, police chief of Alborz province, where the city of Karaj is located, assured the IRNA news agency on Sunday afternoon that there were no clues as to the motive. The Tasnim agency, on the other hand, dared to point to theft as the cause: according to the medium, some gold items were missing. However, his strong character as an artistic opponent of the regime and previous condemnation of Mohammadifar’s threats have led to all sorts of rumors about the murders. Hanif Soroori, the filmmaker’s assistant, who also visited the house on Saturday, stressed that the door of the house had been broken down and that due to the remoteness of the location, despite being within an urbanization, there were no witnesses to provide clues the investigation.
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