Muhammad: The Messenger of God, a blockbuster about the birth of Islam, has been selected by Iran as its contender for the forthcoming Oscars.

Majid Majidi’s $40m (£26.5m) movie, which was part government-funded and is the most expensive production yet mounted in the country, has reportedly taken almost $2m to date in its first month on release in almost half of Iran’s 320 screens.

Yet some have been angered at its partial – blurry, just feet or from the back – depiction of the prophet, whose life from birth until the age of 12 is shown in the film.

Sunni religious authorities have protested, while a group of Muslim clerics in India has issued a fatwa against the film-makers. At its premiere as part of the Montreal film festival, a small number of Canadians protested outside the cinema.

Speaking at the festival, Majidi said he hoped the biopic would help counter the “violent image” of his religion, as propagated by jihadists. “The more movies that are made about the prophet’s life,” said Majidi, “the better”.

The film’s Oscar credentials are impressive: cinematographer Vittorio Storaro is a multiple award-winner, as is AR Rahman, the composer behind the film’s soundtrack. Majidi, meanwhile, previously bagged his country their initial nomination, for Children of Heaven in 1998.

Iran was first triumphant in the foreign language film category in 2012, with Asghar Farhadi’s A Separation.

Current frontrunners in the race include two hits from Cannes – the Auschwitz drama Son of Saul (Hungary) and Rams (Iceland) – as well as Chile’s The Club, the Norwegian disaster drama The Wave and the winner of last year’s Venice film festival, A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence (Sweden).