IRANIAN PRODUCER HOPES NEW REGIME WILL OVERTURN BAN ON HIS FILM

The Iranian producer of the award-winning drama Bear is hoping that the new moderate administration of Hassan Rouhani, will allow the film to be released in the country. In a press release on Sunday, Javad Noruzbeigi said that he had agreed to make certain “modifications” to the film in order to get it approved. The film, directed by Khosro Masumi, won the top prize at the Shanghai International Film Festival last June but was denied a screening license by the Iranian Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance under the regime of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. It concerns a man, listed as missing in action during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, who returns home to find that his wife has remarried and is now the mother of two children. The new regime has shown little desire to overturn the actions of the clergy-dominated court system that has clamped down on film content and other messsages that it regards as violations of Islamic values. Only last week 24-year-old actress Pegah Ahangarani was sentenced to 18 months in prison for “action against national security and links to foreign media.”