“Vitality is still alive in Iran”

A tireless defender of human rights, the Iranian filmmaker, regularly troubled by the Tehran regime and now exiled in Germany, looks back on the genesis of his feature film Seeds of the wild fig tree.

LE FIGARO. – The idea of Seeds of the wild fig tree was born when you were in prison. How did it come about?

MOHAMMAD RASOULOF. –When the Women, Life, Freedom movement started, I had already been arrested for a few weeks. From prison, information about the demonstrations reached us in bits and pieces. One day, agents of the regime visited a political prisoner who had started a hunger strike. I was in a corner. One of these agents took me aside and offered me a pen. He apologized for my detention, telling me: “Sometimes I wonder when I’m going to end up hanging myself on the door of this prison.” He was helpless, ashamed. Then he referred to his family, to his children who, every day, asked him the same question…