The Seed of the Sacred Fig

The Seed of the Sacred Fig (Les Graines du figuier sauvage) is a 2024 drama film written and directed by Mohammad Rasoulof. The story centers on Iman, an investigating judge in the Revolutionary Court in Tehran, who grapples with mistrust and paranoia as nationwide political protests intensify and his gun mysteriously disappears. It stars Soheila Golestani, Missagh Zareh, Mahsa Rostami and Setareh Maleki. The fictional narrative is combined with real images of the protests that were violently suppressed by the Iranian authorities.

The film premiered on 24 May 2024 at the 77th Cannes Film Festival, and was selected to compete for the Palme d'Or in its main competition section, where the jury awarded it a Special Award. Ahead of its premiere, Rasoulof was sentenced to eight years in prison by Iranian authorities. He successfully fled to Germany and attended the red carpet at Cannes.

Plot
Iman, a devout and honest lawyer, lives with his wife Najmeh and their daughters Rezvan and Sana. He has recently been appointed as an investigating judge in the Revolutionary Court in Tehran. The position provides him a higher salary and a larger apartment for his family. As the nationwide political protests against the authoritarian government unfold, Iman discovers that he was not hired because of his legal qualities. He is expected to approve judgments presented to him by his superiors without assessing the evidence, including death sentences. For this reason, he is required to remain anonymous. He is ordered to withhold information from his friends and family who could be targeted as a means of pressuring him. His children are expected to stay off social media. The government issues him a handgun for his family's protection, but Iman is woefully unprepared to handle the gun and fails to properly store it in a secure compartment in the house.

As nationwide political protests intensify, Iman's life is pervaded by mistrust and paranoia. The protests force him to sign several hundred death sentences a day. Meanwhile, Rezvan and Sana follow the protests in horror on their cell phones and rebel against their father at the dinner table. He berates them for their feminist sensibilities which he dismisses as enemy propaganda. Najmeh, who is just as devout as Iman, advises her daughters to stay away from their revolutionary friends. The relationship between parents and daughters deteriorates increasingly. When Sadah, a good friend of Rezvan's, is shot in the face on the street during a demonstration against compulsory hijab, Najmeh and her daughters provide first aid in their apartment. They decide to keep the incident secret from Iman. A short time later, Sadah is arrested.

At the same time, Iman's gun mysteriously disappears and he becomes suspicious of the women of his family, believing one of them has taken it and is lying to him. He forces both daughters and his wife to meet with his colleague Alireza for interrogation. Iman justifies this treatment by saying that he no longer feels safe in his own home since he can no longer trust his family. Iman decides to drive with his wife and daughters to his childhood home in the mountains. There he puts his family on trial. He locks up Najmeh, Rezvan and Sana and tries to force them to confess in front of the camera. It turns out that one of his daughters took the weapon. It changed hands many times among the women in the family. In the end, a wild chase develops.

The film ends with footage captured on mobile phones depicting the bloody protests on the streets of Tehran.

Cast

 * Soheila Golestani as Najmeh
 * Missagh Zareh as Iman
 * Mahsa Rostami as Rezvan
 * Setareh Maleki as Sana
 * Niousha Akhshi as Sadaf
 * Reza Akhlaghirad as Ghaderi
 * Shiva Ordooie as Fateme

Background
In the past, director Mohammad Rasoulof had repeatedly violated Iranian censorship regulations with his films and was given three prison sentences as well as bans on working and leaving the country. In 2020, his film There Is No Evil won the top prize at the 70th Berlin International Film Festival, where it was awarded in his absence.

Rasoulof was originally scheduled to take part in the 2023 Cannes Film Festival as a jury member of the Un Certain Regard section. However, he was arrested in July 2022 after criticising the government's crackdown on protestors in the southwestern city of Abadan over a deadly building collapse. He was temporarily released from prison in February 2023 due to his health. Rasoulof was later pardoned and sentenced to a year in prison and a two-year ban on leaving Iran for "propaganda against the regime."

Following the Cannes selection announcement, the Iranian authorities interrogated the cast and crew, banned them from leaving the country, and pressured them to convince Rasoulof to withdraw the film from the festival line-up. On 8 May 2024, Rasoulof's lawyer announced that the director has been sentenced to eight years in prison as well as flogging, a fine and confiscation of his property.

Shortly after, Rasoulof and some crew members managed to flee from Iran to Europe. Rasoulof's described his 28-day escape from Iran as an "exhausting, long, complicated, and anguishing journey". He traveled on foot between border villages, ultimately arriving in a town with a German consulate which identified him using his fingerprints and issued him a temporary travel document which he used to travel to Germany. Rasoulof and the cast and crew attended the film's red carpet at Cannes on 24 May 2024. During his appearance, he held two photographs displaying the actors Soheila Golestani and Missagh Zareh, both of whom have been unable to leave Iran.

Production
The Seed of the Sacred Fig is the tenth directorial work of Mohammad Rasoulof. The title refers to a species of fig that spreads by "wrapping itself around another tree and eventually strangling it". This was seen as a symbol of the theocratic regime in Iran. Rasoulof wrote the screenplay and cast Missagh Zareh and Soheila Golestani in the main roles of the regime-loyal couple Iman and Najmeh, respectively. Gholestani had herself campaigned against wearing the hijab during the protests and had been arrested for this. Rasoulof cast Mahsa Rostami and Setareh Malek for the roles of the daughters Rezvan and Sana, respectively.

The filming of The Seed of the Sacred Fig took place in secret and lasted about 70 days, from the end of December 2023 to March 2024. Rasoulof himself described it as "difficult". He could only film for a few days at a time and then had to take breaks. Rasoulof worked with cinematographer Pooyan Aghababaei. The director stated that he was in the middle of filming when he learned of his renewed prison sentence. Rasoulof was counting on the appeal process to take a long time to review his case. In addition, this period in spring coincided with the Nowruz (New Year) celebrations in Iran, which lasted two weeks. In fact, Rasoulof managed to finish his film by the end of the holidays. After the appeals court confirmed the verdict, he was forced to decide within a two-hour window whether to remain in Iran and surrender to arrest or to flee. He left all his electronic devices at home and fled to a safe place before crossing the Iranian border on foot.



The footage was smuggled out of Iran to Hamburg, where it was edited by Andrew Bird, who Rasoulof had previously worked with. Post-production took place in Germany. Between the film's fictional scenes, Bird added real images of the political protests following the death of Iranian Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini in police custody in Tehran on 16 September 2022. The final 168-minute version shows real and graphic internet videos of the demonstrations and the subsequent violent crackdown by authorities.

Rasoulof produced the film alongside Amin Sadraei, Mani Tilgner, Rozita Hendijanian and Jean-Christophe Simon. The production companies involved were Run Way Pictures of Germany and Parallel45 of France. It was co-producerd by Arte France Cinéma with the support of the MOIN Filmförderung Hamburg Schleswig-Holstein. The Berlin-based company Films Boutique is handling the worldwide sales rights.

Release
The Seed of the Sacred Fig was selected to compete for the Palme d'Or at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival, where it had its world premiere on 24 May 2024. The film received a standing ovation with reports that it lasted either 12 minutes or 15 minutes. Prior to its screening, Neon acquired North American distribution rights to the film, planning to release it later that year. Following the film's premiere, Lionsgate acquired the distribution rights for the UK and Ireland.

Pyramide Distribution is scheduled to theatrically release the film in France on 18 September 2024.