Meeting of the Central Directors Council with Some Women of Cinema: Pressure on Female Artists and the Resistance of the Artistic Community Continues

Meeting of the Central Council of Directors with a number of women in cinema: Pressure on female artists and the artistic community’s resistance continues

Following the meeting of the new Central Council of the Cinema Directors’ Guild with a number of female cinema actors, who have judicial cases against them for protesting against mandatory hijab and are on the brink of being banned from work, reactions to the Islamic Republic’s efforts to shut down independent Iranian cinema and punish artists who supported last year’s public protests continue.

Various government bodies, from the judiciary to the Cinema Organization, the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance, the Supreme Council of the Cultural Revolution, and the Broadcasting Organization, have in recent months put pressure on these artists through various means.

Examples of these coordinated actions include filing judicial cases against female actors appearing in public without mandatory hijab, granting exclusive rights to oversee the production and distribution of home video network products to the Broadcasting Organization, and sending threatening letters from the Cinema Organization to Iranian film producers, urging them not to collaborate with artists accused of norm-breaking due to not observing mandatory hijab.