Saeed Roustayi

Saeed Roustaee (Persian: سعید روستایی, born August 14, 1989), also spelled Saeed Roustayi, is an Iranian director, screenwriter and producer. He has won the Crystal Simorgh for Best Director, Best Screenplay and Best First Director at the 34th Fajr Film Festival for his feature directorial debut drama film Life and a Day (2016). In 2022, his second film, Just 6.5 (2019), was nominated for the César Award for Best Foreign Film. In April 2022, his third film, Leila's Brothers (2022), was selected to compete for the Palme d'Or at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival.

Early life
He graduated from Soore University with a Bachelor of Film and Television in Directing.

Career
Life and a Day is his first major cinematic work. At the Fajr International Film Festival, Roustayi won 2 Crystal Simorghs for best directing and best screenplay. He received the 2016 Reflet d'Or for Best Feature at the Geneva International Film Festival Tous Ecrans.

His works primarily focus on issues of social injustice, as well as his portrayals of women in Iranian society.

His third feature film Leila's Brothers competed in the 2022 Cannes Film Festival where it won the FIPRESCI Prize for films screened in the main competition section.

Conviction
In August 2023, the Islamic Revolutionary Court sentenced Roustayi to six months in prison for entering Leila's Brother's in the 2022 Cannes Film Festival, claiming that the film participated in "the opposition’s propaganda against the Islamic system". Roustayi alleged that Iran's Ministry of Culture had requested a series of scene changes to Leila's Brothers which he had refused to implement. Roustayi is due to serve nine days of his sentence and a suspended period of five years, as well as participating in other punitive measures such as completing a course on "creating movies aligned with national interests and national morality".