Banned in Iran, UK visa rejected: Mohsen Amiryousofi's film about banned films goes to London

This director says about acting for the first time, filming without permission and why he still hopes that Iranian audiences will see the film "Forbidden Curse" which will be screened for the first time at the London Film Festival: I don't know how the audience will react, but I am very happy about the screening of this film.

Iranian director Mohsen Amiriousfi (Fireman, Lovely Trash) talks about his work and past work with none other than the Angel of Death in his new film "The Curse of Detention," a piece of "self-imagining about the highs and lows of radical filmmaking."

This film, written and directed by this author, will have a world premiere on Wednesday in the program of the 70th edition of the festival. According to a representative, the director and his editor, Kami Safari, found that the UK had rejected their visa applications, so they could not travel to London to experience the audience's reaction to the film. But Amiryousofi is used to facing all kinds of obstacles, which is what his new film is about.

"Queen Sylvia" ditches the glass slipper for un-Cinderella royal romance

After the critical success of his first film at Cannes [where the black comedy A Bad Dream won the Camera d'Or for Best First Feature], Amiryousefi returned to Iran only to find it had been seized by government authorities. It's a pattern that continued throughout his career, and the seasoned director looks at it in this imaginative and humorous portrait. A balance of biography and fabricated story, the filmmaker's own life and Iran's turbulent political, social and cultural history are interwoven through a rich collection of archival images.

Film history is also a recurring theme in Stefilm's The Banning Curse trailer, which you can watch below. For example, a legendary Iranian actor is mentioned, while the film also mentions the works of famous directors such as Federico Fellini and Christopher Nolan.

Amiryousofi spoke to THR via Zoom about The Banning Curse and its creation.

This film was shot indoors without a filming license and without the need for a big budget. "It wasn't too complicated for us because it's something that I and many other filmmakers in Iran have done before," the director tells THR through his translator. "But the main thing that was different was that this time I was in front of the camera. It was my first [acting] experience and I tried to be very honest and share all the reflections of the subject in front of the camera."

The Angel of Death is a character who has appeared in Amiryousofi's films before. "Since my first film, there has been a sort of angel of death, and this time, too," explains the filmmaker. And the audience in his country is familiar with this idea. It is very normal for Iranian people to feel the angel of death by their side. I tried to turn it into something else in the middle of the film, where we can see that it's mostly the filmmaker's duality, but the Angel of Death represents death as it is seen and believed in Iranian society."

Does the Iranian filmmaker have any hope that the audience will welcome the movie "Forbidden Curse"? LFF? "I don't know how the audience will react, but I'm very happy that this film is coming out. I hope this look at life, full of funny moments, full of anger, full of sadness, can connect with the audience."

Amiryousifi's films have long been banned in his country, but he also expects "Forbidden Curse" to be seen there. "Fortunately, there are many ways to show people movies these days," he says. There are many spaces and virtual screenings and streaming, so you can see people who follow Iranian movies that way.

Whether Iran's restrictions will ever be eased is another matter, but Amiryousofi is hopeful. Amiryousofi says: "Anything can happen and I am optimistic." I hope that no one, including me, will have any problems with the release of the film in Iran."

The film's references range from Italian classics to Hollywood blockbusters to Iranian cinema, and the director says: "For me, Fellini is the greatest filmmaker in the history of cinema and his films, especially La Strada and Amarcord, have a special place in my heart." But when it comes to Nolan, I was trying to connect with Iranian filmmakers. To Abbas Kiarostami [and others]."

For Iranian directors, prison is a real danger, and Mohammad Rasoulov is one of those who has served his sentence. Is Amiryousofi also worried about the same fate? Amiryousofi, who says ironically, "When I was young, I was more fearless" is 54 years old. "Now that I'm going gray, I'm kind of more conservative."

The director ends our chat with another joke about his age: "When I was going through the archive footage, I saw someone who looked very familiar, and I told the editor to back off. And I saw myself much younger with black hair and longer. I was, but now, I feel like a very different version of myself."