Internationally recognised as one of the most significant voices in contemporary cinema, Rasoulof will be in Vila do Conde to present a selection of his films and engage in a conversation with audiences about a cinematic journey profoundly shaped by resistance, censorship, and the defence of freedom of expression.

Born in Shiraz in 1972, Mohammad Rasoulof has built, over more than two decades, an award-winning filmography recognised at the world's leading film festivals. His films explore the contradictions of Iranian society while exposing the repression exercised by the regime over its citizens. They offer a powerful examination of how institutional violence, censorship, and political corruption permeate everyday life, affecting not only the public sphere but also family relationships and personal lives.

Rasoulof’s career is inseparable from the persecution he has endured in his home country. In 2010, he was arrested while shooting a film and convicted for filming without official permission. In 2017, his passport was confiscated and he was banned from leaving Iran. In 2020, only weeks after winning the Golden Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival for There Is No Evil, he was once again sentenced to prison and prohibited from making films on charges of producing “propaganda against the system.” Much of his work has therefore been made clandestinely and under conditions of considerable personal risk.

There Is No Evil (2020), which received the Berlinale’s top award, examines Iran’s death penalty system and the human consequences of citizens’ participation in an institutionalised mechanism of repression. Rasoulof was unable to attend the award ceremony, as he remained barred from leaving the country.

His most recent feature, The Seed of the Sacred Fig (2024), further confirms the political and cinematic power of his work. Also filmed in secret, it follows a judge newly appointed to a position connected with death penalty cases who, within the confines of his home, attempts to conceal from his teenage daughters the role he plays amid growing public opposition to the regime. Set almost entirely within the claustrophobic space of an apartment, the film transforms the domestic environment into a metaphor for the social and political tensions that run through the country.

Although Rasoulof began his career in documentary filmmaking, he gradually developed a cinematic language that combines a strong sense of realism with allegorical and symbolic narrative structures. Films such as Iron Island (2005), The White Meadows (2009), and A Man of Integrity (2017) demonstrate how he uses fiction to reflect on power, justice, individual responsibility, and the various forms of resistance to oppressive systems.

The In Focus retrospective dedicated to Mohammad Rasoulof offers a rare opportunity to discover—or revisit—one of the most important and courageous bodies of work in contemporary cinema. Rasoulof’s presence at Curtas Vila do Conde will also provide audiences with the opportunity to engage directly with a filmmaker whose work continues to affirm cinema as a space for freedom, critical reflection, and resistance, even under the most adverse circumstances.