The Seed of the Sacred Fig

"The Seed of the Sacred Fig, awarded at the Cannes Film Festival and nominated for the 2025 Oscars for Best International Film, is a movie by Iranian filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof, who has faced several attempts at censorship by the Iranian regime. He had to film this production in secret and flee the country to present it. Set against the backdrop of the protests following the death of Mahsa Amini, which triggered a wave of repression and violence between 2022 and 2023 comparable only to the Iranian Revolution, the film explores the lives of a family. The father, Iman (Missagh Zareh), is appointed as an investigative judge for the Tehran Revolutionary Court, but only with the purpose of issuing sentences obediently—often death sentences—without reviewing evidence. He decides to keep the job as a way to provide a better life for his wife (Soheila Golestani) and two daughters (Setareh Maleki and Mahsa Rostami), but tensions at home escalate as protests intensify on the streets, the girls align with the demonstrators, and the father’s weapon mysteriously disappears from the house. Rasoulof makes the most of the few locations he could film in, turning the domestic space into a suffocating place where the family’s core coexists inseparably with politics and is inevitably corrupted by fundamentalism and authoritarianism. A brilliant and intelligent film that, beyond its Iranian context, shows us that the naivety of separating family from politics is impossible, as one is the seed of the other, in symbiosis."

"The Seed of the Sacred Fig - Iran Between Patriarchy and Female Revolts. The protests against the death of Mahsa Amini in police custody, after she was arrested for incorrectly wearing her hijab, are seen here from the point of view of a family. Iman (Misagh Zare) has just been promoted to investigative judge of the Revolutionary Guard Court when the female revolt explodes in the country. His daughters, Rezvan (Mahsa Rostami) and Sana (Setareh Maleki), join the other women, while the mother, Najmeh (Soheila Golestani), tries to keep the peace at home. Check out our full review."