KOCHI: It would seem appropriate that a culture which has made a fetish of masking things should have two blind persons who call the shots in Iran's censor board .

"You won't believe it, but in Iran two blind people are on the panel to censor films. Their assistants narrate the scenes and they dictate which scenes are to be excluded without seeing the visuals,'' acclaimed Iranian director Mohsen Makhmalbaf told an open forum on the side lines of the Kochi International Film Festival on Monday. "For instance, when the assistant informs them a woman is entering the frame they would ask if she has worn her veil properly. They would insist on deleting the scene if they get a negative answer from the assistant,'' he explained.

Makhmalbaf graphically recounted the nightmare that filmmakers face in Iran, with censorship, incidentally, being the lesser evil. He revealed how initially the theocratic regime banned some of his films, eventually his entire ouvre. Currently Makhmalbaf and his family are prohibited from even entering Iran.

"The Iranian regime sent terrorists to kill me. They also sent people in groups to arrange orchestrated protests to create a false impression that people are against my films," he said. He also spoke of how when his daughter Samira Makhmalbaf made the acclaimed film 'Blackboards', which won an award at Cannes, the Iranian intelligence agencies wrote to him warning that, "we will not allow your prostitute daughter to enter our country, and if she enters we will rape her.''

Similarly, when his assistant made a film, the regime wanted Makhmalbaf's name to be deleted from the credits if he was to be granted permission to enter Iran.

"I told my assistant to delete my name. But I also wrote to the Iranian president Mahmud Ahmadinejad to delete his name from the face of Iran so that Iran can become a free country,'' Makhmalbaf, who lives in exile in London, said. Makhmalbaf however warned that censorship could take many forms and Iran's crude and obvious methods shouldn't lull others into believing that censorship didn't exist in their country.

He spoke of how markets too sometimes act as a powerful agent of stifling freedom of expression. "Markets deprive funds to make an authentic film and also prevent cinema houses from screening them. Even in India which has a rich pluralistic cultural lineage, how many art films get theatre releases,'' he asked.