Iran Feature: How Do You Cope with Award-Winning Director Farhadi?

Maya Neyestani: "Asghar, take your award and run before Madonna kisses you!"

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This week director Asghar Farhadi's Nader and Simin: A Separation was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the Oscars. Earlier this month, the film took the award at the Golden Globes.

Reports and footage indicate that most Iranians were overjoyed by the news (see video in separate EA entry). Some, however, did not take it so well. M. Bibak writes for Payvand:

Iranian director Asghar Farhadi has been on a roll lately, winning the Best Foreign Language Film awards at the BFCA [Broadcast Film Critics Association] and the Golden Globe. He is on his way to the Oscars. But while many in Iran are congratulating Farhadi and celebrating his success, this has infuriated the hardliners.

The conservatives view Farhadi and many other Iranian cineastes as promoters of un-Islamic culture and western values. So it's no wonder Iran's House of Cinema was recently ordered closed by the Culture Ministry.

Farhadi himself has come under attack by by Fars News Agency, which is said to be affiliated with the Revolutionary Guards), among others for violating "diplomatic practices". Apparently Farhadi violated the protocol which prohibits men and women from shaking hands when he shook the hands with the beautiful actress Angelina Jolie.

In the rush to attack Farhadi, another website called Young Journalists Club has caused quite a gaffe by publishing photos of Jodie Foster during the Golden Globe awards and calling her gestures "shameful" and "obscene" and then calling Farhadi an "ignoble character" for smiling at Foster's gestures. (Of course the writer didn't exempt the famous actress from his kind words and called her as part of the society of the morally corrupt.)

Little did the author know the meaning of these gestures [in the "West", if not in Iran]:

First photo: A-ok --- very definitely OK
Second photo: Two thumbs up --- an indication of very high quality or unanimity of praise

The publication must have been made aware of the blunder, since the original article has now been replaced with a blank page. (Thanks to Google however, the cached version is still available for all to enjoy.) Don't expect an apology from the Young Journalists Club to Farhadi or Foster anytime soon, since their blunder does not change the fact that these two characters are still morally corrupt....