By Jake Coyle, Film Writer
CANNES, France (AP) --After being sentenced to eight years in prison, the award-winning Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof says he's fled to Europe shortly ahead of the Cannes Film Festival premiere of his latest film.
"I arrived in Europe a few days ago after a long and complicated journey," Rasoulof said in a statement dated Sunday and distributed by press agents Monday.
Last week, Rasoulof's lawyer told The Associated Press that the director had been sentenced to eight years in prison, flogging and confiscation of property by the Islamic Republic. Rasoulof's attorney, Babak Paknia, said the filmmaker was being punished for making films and signing statements.
Iranian authorities haven't yet acknowledged Rasoulof's sentence and there was no immediate comment on his departure. Rasoulof and other artists had co-signed a letter urging authorities to put down their weapons amid demonstrations over a 2022 building collapse that killed at least 29 people in the southwestern city of Abadan.
Rasoulof, 51, is the latest artist targeted in a widening crackdown on all dissent in Iran following years of mass protests, including over the 2022 death of Mahsa Amini. His 2020 film "There Is No Evil" won the Golden Bear prize at Berlin in 2020.
Rasoulof said the prison sentence came before he revealed his latest film, "The Seed of the Sacred Fig." That film premieres in competition in Cannes on May 24.
"Knowing that the news of my new film would be revealed very soon, I knew that without a doubt, a new sentence would be added to these eight years," said Rasoulof. "I didn't have much time to make a decision. I had to choose between prison and leaving Iran. With a heavy heart, I chose exile. The Islamic Republic confiscated my passport in September 2017. Therefore, I had to leave Iran secretly."
Rasoulof said he strongly objected to his ruling but noted many others have been handed death sentences in the crackdown.
"The scope and intensity of repression has reached a point of brutality where people expect news of another heinous government crime every day," said Rasoulof. "The criminal machine of the Islamic Republic is continuously and systematically violating human rights."
Rasoulof is currently in an undisclosed location. It's unclear if he will attend the Cannes premiere of his film.
"We are very happy and much relieved that Mohammad has safely arrived in Europe after a dangerous journey," said Jean-Christophe Simon, chief executive of Films Boutique and Parallel45. "We hope he will be able to attend the Cannes premiere of 'The Seed of the Sacred Fig' in spite of all attempts to prevent him from being there in person."
Shortly before the release of Rasoulof's statement, Thierry Fremaux, Cannes' artistic director, said "the real question is about his presence" when asked about the "The Seed of the Sacred Fig" in a pre-festival press conference Monday.
"The festival speaks through films," said Fremaux. He described "The Seed of the Sacred Fig" as about "how insidiously the Iranian dictatorship creeps into families."
Rasoulof also detailed the pressure put on his collaborators on the film. Some actors left Iran before wider awareness of the production, he said. Others have been interrogated and had their families summoned for questioning. Rasoulof said his cinematographer's offices was raided.
"Many people helped to make this film," he said. "My thoughts are with all of them, and I fear for their safety and well-being."
Google is blasted by UK watchdog for what it calls anti-competitive behavior through digital ads
Google was slammed Friday by U.K. regulators who say it's taking advantage of its dominance in digital advertising to thwart competition in Britain, ratcheting up pressure that the tech giant is facing on both sides of the Atlantic over its "ad tech" business practices.
Britain's Competition and Markets Authority said that the U.S. company gives preference to its own services to the detriment of online publishers and advertisers in Britain's 1.8 billion pound ($2.4 billion) digital ad market. The watchdog leveled its accusations after an investigation, and the findings could potentially lead to a fine worth billions of dollars or an order to change its behavior.
Google is a major player throughout the digital ad ecosystem, providing servers for publishers to manage ad space on their websites and apps, tools for advertisers and media agencies to buy display ads, and an exchange where both sides come together to buy and sell ads in real time at auctions.
"We've provisionally found that Google is using its market power to hinder competition when it comes to the ads people see on websites," the watchdog's interim executive director of enforcement, Juliette Enser, said in a press release.
The watchdog's charges, known as a statement of objections, arrive two years after it opened its investigation. Google's digital ad business is also the focus of a European Union antitrust investigation and a U.S. Justice Department lawsuit that's set to go to trial this month.
The CMA said that Google's "anti-competitive" conduct is ongoing, but the company disputed the allegations Friday.
"Google remains committed to creating value for our publisher and advertiser partners in this highly competitive sector," the company said in a prepared... Read More