Bahram Beyzaei: I will break my own hand and will not allow you to make me my own censor.
The Instagram account attributed to Bahram Beyzaei, the renowned Iranian writer and director, in response to the claim by the head of the Cinema Organization that conditions are ready for artists to return to Iran, has published parts of Mr. Beyzaei’s famous protest letter to the Ministry of Culture, which reads as follows:
It is thanks to my existence and that of other filmmakers that you sit behind that desk in a room where you treat us like slaves, obedient and taking orders. I will break my own hand and will not allow you to make me my own censor.
The head of the Cinema Organization of the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance claimed that conditions are ready for the return of many artists like Behrouz Vossoughi to Iran and invited Bahram Beyzaei to make his new film in Iran.
Bahram Beyzaei wrote his famous protest letter to the Cinema Deputy of the Ministry of Culture in response to the restrictions and problems that the authorities at the time had created for the screening of the film ‘The Travelers’, produced in 1991, and in it, he explicitly criticized the request for censorship of his work.
