After receiving the "Akira Kurosawa" award from the Tokyo International Film Festival, Mohammad Rasolaf, a famous Iranian actor, criticized the ongoing pressure and oppression of filmmakers in Iran, and regarding the recent conviction of Jafar Panahi, including five more years in prison and confiscation of property, he saw this as a sign of ongoing oppression in Iranian cinema.
Rasolaf, who received the Akira Kurosawa Award at the closing ceremony of the 70th Tokyo International Film Festival on Monday, November 2, along with O Mipo of the Japanese Automobile Battalion, told a press conference: "Iranian cinema is still facing repression and my friends and colleagues are under heavy pressure."
He also emphasized that many Iranian filmmakers no longer have the desire to use metaphors and irony to express their opinions and tell their stories, and are determined to express the issues and reality of society clearly and stand up to those in power. Referring to his experience of being arrested in 2010 and sentenced to five years in prison, this Iranian battalion said that this experience changed his perspective on the way of narration and he made a decision.