In a statement posted on Instagram, Rasoulof said he learned through social media that the film was being shown at the “Nowruz Festival” in the border town of Sderot, near Gaza.
The director said that while the international distribution rights to his film have been licensed to global distributors, he rejects its inclusion in an event hosted in “a place whose politicians have targeted the people of Iran with bombs and missiles.”
“I am deeply angered by the screening of my film in such a place,” he wrote, adding that he considers the decision incompatible with his own moral and political position.
Addressing the festival’s director, Rasoulof said the film was created, “to the best of my ability, to express my hatred and disgust toward oppression and injustice.”
He urged the organizers to “show the same courage in condemning the rulers of the land you live in—whose hands are stained with the blood of so many people.”
