Pressure Iran by supporting filmmakers

The Iranian regime is a rickety rogue state propped up by aging mullahs whose economic system is in shambles and whose populace is being ravaged by the coronavirus. If Americans want to pressure or even topple one of the country’s key enemies in the Middle East, we have no better allies than internal dissidents, among them Iran’s filmmakers. The United States should do everything it can to support those who are speaking out against the repressive regime.

Film is arguably Iran’s most important export at this moment, even more so than oil: Not in terms of finances, maybe, but in terms of cultural impact and prestige on the world stage. Filmmakers such as Abbas Kiarostami, who died in 2016, and director Asghar Farhadi, who in 2012 won an Academy Award for best foreign-language film for his movie A Separation, have garnered the dedication of cinephiles around the world and tastemakers at home. This is hardly a new phenomenon: As Hamid Dabashi noted in an essay for the BBC, Iran’s status as a center for world cinema has a long and storied history.

Iranian filmmakers have grown bolder as the world’s attention has turned to the oppression of the Iranian people. Mohammad Rasoulof, for instance, last week won the Berlin Film Festival’s highest honor — an award, the New York Times notes, he could not receive in person because he had been banned from leaving Iran by the Iranian regime and faces a year in prison for “spreading propaganda.” Jafar Panahi was imprisoned for his support of the 2009 Green Movement that pushed for the removal of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as president. He has been banned from making movies in his own country and relied on European festivals to get his work to a wider audience.

As Sara Aridi explained in a piece for the Times, the Iranian state and the country’s most talented filmmakers are locked in a bitter cycle. These artists have provoked the ire of a leadership uncertain about how to handle its populace’s anger, and have responded to repression by speaking out with even greater vigor.

They have plenty to denounce. Recently, protests against gas-price hikes were met with armed violence perpetrated by the state, leading to more than 200 deaths in just a week’s time. And the Iranian government attracted international condemnation and internal protests for downing an airplane with 176 people on it and then covering it up afterward. Artistic voices have been among the most inspiring lights of opposition.

The regime’s attempts to snuff out those lights have earned Iranian leadership widespread criticism from tastemakers. Aridi highlights the cases of Hossein Rajabian, who was imprisoned for making a film about the plight of women in Iran, and Rasoulof, sentenced for making the Cannes-celebrated A Man of Integrity, as well as filmmakers such as Bahman Ghobadi who have fled the country or sent their families abroad so as to avoid retaliation.

These Iranian filmmakers are doing the world an enormous service, by showing what it means to stand up to true authoritarianism. By speaking up despite knowing that doing so will be met not with plaudits and praise but prison and repression, they show what true bravery is.

Which is why it was so foolish and self-defeating that the Trump administration’s travel ban on predominantly Muslim countries alienated this internal force for change in Iran. Farhadi could have spoken eloquently about the ills of the regime on an international stage when his film The Salesman won best foreign-language film at the 2017 Oscars ceremony. But the decision to boycott the ceremony over the travel ban deprived the United States of a potential PR masterstroke: Even if Farhadi had taken the Trump administration to task, it would have shown just how powerful the idea and ideal of freedom is.

It’s reasonable for the government to take precautions against allowing terrorists entry into the United States. But balancing that imperative with vigorous efforts to support the work of individuals opposed to an enemy regime feels like a more intelligent application of American power than President Donald Trump’s blanket crackdown. Aiding these dissidents in any way possible — helping them attend film festivals in the United States; securing them and their families sanctuary outside the borders of Iran; funneling funding to them if they need cash for their endeavors — should be a top priority on the Iran desk at the State Department. The American government has showed it knows the power of culture before. It’s time to do so again.

Sonny Bunch is the editor in chief of cinestate.com. This was first published by the Washington Post.