Accusations of sedition and vote rigging are stirring resentment at both ends of the political spectrum as the Iranian public digests the cataclysmic close of the Fajr Film Festival, a closely watched annual event that reflects not only state of the country’s film industry, but the mood of society as a whole.

The dearth of an open and inclusive forum for often-conflicting cultural views makes Iranian cinema a rare outlet for broad-based debate on pressing sociopolitical topics. In recent days, it has become an ideological war zone as regime hardliners clash with proponents of a more open cultural policy that tolerates the critical views of young filmmakers.

Each year, some 1.5 million people attend Tehran’s Fajr festival, which showcases the works of popular filmmakers working in Iran and includes a closing awards ceremony timed to coincide with the anniversary of the 1979 revolution. The constraints of censorship, pervasive throughout the cultural scene, mean that both the organizers and the audience place a high value on the “People’s Choice” award, which is considered representative of the tastes of the public at large. Throughout the festival, each participating cinema is equipped with heavily guarded ballot boxes where audience members cast votes for their favorite film.

The state broadcaster IRIB, which has a monopoly on local TV networks, regularly covers the awards ceremony live as the vote results are announced. This year, however, IRIB interrupted its broadcast four times in 90 minutes as film industry luminaries voiced their disenchantment with the systematic exclusion of films that appeared to cross the establishment’s ideological red line.

Milad Theatre during the Fajr film festival this year Photograph: Amin Mohammad Jamali/Getty Images Photograph: Amin Mohammad Jamali/Getty Images

At the top of the black list is I am not angry, a film by 32-year-old Reza Dormishian that focuses on the life of a student expelled from university for political reasons. At the end of the film, the poverty-stricken protagonist appears to be going to sell his kidney as the voice of former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad blares from the radio, denying the existence of domestic economic problems.



The film was speedily denounced by conservative media outlets such as the Fars news agency, which warned that “the sound of sedition” - a term used by hardliners to describe the opposition Green Movement - was audible at the Fajr festival. Despite its popularity with viewers and nominations for multiple awards, I am not angry was excluded from the voting process to ensure “the expediency of the cinema,” as the moderator announced at the start of the ceremony.

Many of the luminaries who remained eligible for awards voiced their opposition to the censorship.

“I am trying to be able to say ‘I am not angry,’” director Mostafa Kiai said as he accepted the prize for his drama “Khat-e vije,” one of two films finally selected for the People’s Choice award. IRIB cut off Kimiai’s speech after he urged the government to “value young filmmakers,” but the remainder of his statement was soon posted on Caffe Cinema, a leading film review website:

“If the judges were a bit younger, I’m sure that they would have more value for young people. They told us not to talk about the [selection process] because if we did, they would take us to the disciplinary committee and screen our film without an audience.”

Another interruption in the live coverage occurred when Mohsen Darsanj, accepting an award for “Best Makeup”, dedicated his trophy to Likeable Garbage, a film about the Green Movement that was not accepted into the festival. On the opposite side of the political spectrum was Merajiha, a war film directed by Masood Dehnamaki. A former member of the hardline Ansar-e Hezbollah militia, Dehnamaki collected the special effects prize on behalf of four stuntmen killed during the detonation of TNT, a military-grade explosive.

Dehnamaki’s film did not win any major awards, but the culture ministry’s perceived partiality to festival movies of the same genre continues to fulminate on Iranian weblogs and official news outlets. One anonymous letter to culture minister Ali Jannati accuses IRIB managers of buying out festival tickets for two other politically correct films about the Iran-Iraq war, then distributing the tickets to regime-friendly organizations to guarantee a favorable vote. A film industry professional who attended the festival confirmed this account. “Certain cinemas sold all of their tickets in bulk to an unnamed organization,” he told Tehran Bureau.

Meanwhile, the Islamic Student News Agency (ISNA) quoted the director of a 200-seat cinema that showed I am not angry, but was not permitted to hold additional screenings even though some 2,000 people requested tickets. When the crowds continued to congregate around the cinema after the one and only screening, the director told ISNA he “had to ask the police to make them go.”

Notably, IRIB did air the full award acceptance speech of one filmmaker, Babak Hamidian, who directed his words at President Hassan Rouhani, requesting a meeting “with no intermediaries” to “talk about the problems” of Iranian cinema.

The Tehran Bureau is an independent media organisation, hosted by the Guardian. Contact us @tehranbureau. This article was originally published without a byline