Mohammad Rasoulof can not leave Iran

The following text was sent to filmkommentaren.dk by the organisers of Doclisboa’13:

Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof is barred from leaving his country, he will not be able to attend Doclisboa’13. Mohammad Rasoulof has been invited to chair the Jury of the International Competition of the 11th Doclisboa – International Film Festival, in Portugal.

The Iranian director went back to Iran 10 days ago and had since his passport confiscated. The authorities refuse to let him leave the country and he is not authorised to travel until “new order”, or attend any festivals presenting his latest film ”Manuscripts don’t Burn”.

In these circumstances, Doclisboa organisation has decided to leave Mohammad Rasoulof’s place as President of the Jury empty, as an act of support and solidarity with the Iranian filmmaker.

Doclisboa finds it not acceptable that he is deprived to leave the country and will contribute in every possible way to make clear that Rasoulof is being held against his will and hindered to exercise his job as a director and filmmaker.

Additionally, Rasoulof was supposed to attend the German premiere of the film at Hamburg Film Festival on Tuesday evening, October 1st, and to accept a lifetime achievement award on October 8th at the Nuremburg International Human Rights Film Festival, in Germany.

The closing session of the 11th Doclisboa is going to show ”Manuscripts don’t Burn”, to be held on Saturday, November 2nd. The film tells the story of an Iranian author who manages to secretly write down his memoirs, related to his time in jail as a political prisoner…

http://www.doclisboa.org/2013/en/home/

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Tue Steen Müller
Tue Steen Müller

Müller, Tue Steen
Documentary Consultant and Critic, DENMARK

Worked with documentary films for more than 20 years at the Danish Film Board, as press officer, festival representative and film consultant/commissioner. Co-founder of Balticum Film and TV Festival, Filmkontakt Nord, Documentary of the EU and EDN (European Documentary Network).
Awards: 2004 the Danish Roos Prize for his contribution to the Danish and European documentary culture. 2006 an award for promoting Portuguese documentaries. 2014 he received the EDN Award “for an outstanding contribution to the development of the European documentary culture”. 2016 The Cross of the Knight of the Order for Merits to Lithuania. 2019 a Big Stamp at the 15th edition of ZagrebDox. 2021 receipt of the highest state decoration, Order of the Three Stars, Fourth Class, for the significant contribution to the development and promotion of Latvian documentary cinema outside Latvia. In 2022 he received an honorary award at DocsBarcelona’s 25th edition having served as organizer and programmer since the start of the festival.
From 1996 until 2005 he was the first director of EDN (European Documentary Network). From 2006 a freelance consultant and teacher in workshops like Ex Oriente, DocsBarcelona, Archidoc, Documentary Campus, Storydoc, Baltic Sea Forum, Black Sea DocStories, Caucadoc, CinéDOC Tbilisi, Docudays Kiev, Dealing With the Past Sarajevo FF as well as programme consultant for the festivals Magnificent7 in Belgrade, DOCSBarcelona, Verzio Budapest, Message2Man in St. Petersburg and DOKLeipzig. Teaches at the Zelig Documentary School in Bolzano Italy.

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