“The Seed of the Sacred Fig” director Mohammad Rasoulof has revealed details of his next film, and he’s following in Bong Joon Ho’s footsteps by making an animated film.
Rasoulof is telling Variety that the untitled project will span the life of absurdist Iranian playwright Abbas Nalbandian, covering the events until the playwright’s death a decade later. The story is set during the Iranian revolution.
With this animated biopic, Rasoulof wants to focus on three pivotal decades in modern Iranian history – a period he feels he can only properly evoke with a more stylized filmmaking form.
Germany recently submitted “The Seed of the Sacred Fig” as its Oscar entry in the Best International Feature race. A trailer is available online via Neon. We already knew the film wouldn’t be Iran’s selection, Rasoulof escaped that country after being sentenced to eight years in prison, he was also set to be flogged by authorities.
Rasoulof is currently residing in Berlin. Given that ‘Sacred Fig’ was backed by German and French money, this selection complied with Academy rules.
Rasoulof was banned from leaving Iran since 2017. He served jail time from July 2022 to February 2023, and was released early due to general amnesty for thousands of prisoners in Iran following widespread protests. Shortly after his release, he was notified there was a new case opened against him, this time about his film “There Is No Evil” (2020) that in his enforced absence won the Golden Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival.
‘Seed of the Sacred Fig’ tackles a family man, Iman, living with his two 20-something daughters and wife in a Tehran apartment, who has just been promoted as judge by the Iranian government. However, his promotion comes as the country enters a state of unrest. Riots break out when a girl is killed by authorities for not wearing her hijab, and Iman’s gun suddenly goes missing in the apartment …
Clocking in at almost three hours, Rasoulof’s film tackles a country in distress, the corruption that lies underneath the facade and how, in the middle of all this, the women of Iran try to manage the suppression by living a life of repression.
As it stands, the main contenders for the International Oscar seem to be Rasoulof’s “The Sacred Seed of the Fig,” Jacques Audiard’s “Emilia Perez,” Magnus von Horn’s “The Girl With the Needle, Rich Peppiatt’s “Kneecap” and Walter Salles’ “I’m Still Here.”