Tehran, May 27: Tehran will ban celebrated Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami’s film “Certified Copy” from general release because of award-winning star Juliette Binoche’s unsuitable attire, an official was quoted as saying on Thursday.
“If Juliette Binoche were better clad it could have been screened but due to her attire there will not be a general screening of the film,” Deputy Culture Minister Javad Shamaqdari was quoted as saying by local newspapers, without describing the offensive attire.
“But in some private circles and universities it can be shown,” he added.
“In addition, the film’s distributor is American and, in general, we do not have a policy of screening films that have foreign distributors,” he said.
Binoche won the Cannes best actress prize on Sunday for her role in the film as an unhappy art dealer in Italy who flirts with an English writer in a tortuous tete-a-tete about love and marriage.
At Cannes, she brandished a sign with the name of Jafar Panahi, the Iranian film-maker who was jailed in Tehran in March, accused of planning a film against the Islamic regime. Panahi was released on bail on Tuesday.
Shamaqdari, who attended the film festival, described “Certified Copy” as “not a bad film,” which he said he watched at a movie hall in Paris with general audience.
“It shows the loneliness of the people of a certain age because of the situation of their families, which is linked to the existing freedoms in Europe,” he said.
But Shamaqdari said he believed “this film will not have a big Iranian audience, except among those in Iran who have Western lifestyles.”
“I do not think that Mr Kiarostami is seeking to screen his film in Iran,” he added.
Celebrated director and 1997 Palme d’Or winner Kiarostami has shot only one feature in Iran since 2003.
“Shirin”, filmed in 2008, has not been screened in Iran, although it is unclear whether the director made any attempts to have it shown.
Kiarostami’s last two feature films “Ten” (2002) and “The Wind Will Carry Us” (1999) were banned from Iranian cinemas.
—Agencies