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A Conversation with Mohammad Rasoulof (SEED OF THE SACRED FIG)

Iranian filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof has spent two decades making films that examine how people navigate life under authoritarian rule. His work, including the Golden Bear-winning There Is No Evil (2020), focuses on everyday citizens forced to make impossible choices, earning him both international acclaim and repeated persecution from Iranian authorities. Despite multiple prison sentences and filming bans, Rasoulof has continued making uncompromising films that probe the realities of contemporary Iranian society.

His latest work, The Seed of the Sacred Fig, follows a revolutionary court judge whose carefully structured life begins to unravel when his service weapon vanishes from his home. What starts as a search for a missing gun evolves into a taut family drama that exposes the generational divisions within Iranian society. Shot in secret while Rasoulof faced an eight-year prison sentence, the film premiered at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival, where it won a special jury prize. Through its story of one family’s dissolution, The Seed of the Sacred Fig offers a precisely observed portrait of a society at a breaking point. It was amazing to speak with Mohammad in the following conversation edited for length and clarity.

Hammer To Nail: Thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me today. Not only is this film a masterpiece, you are truly a hero of cinema. You drew inspiration from meeting interrogators and judges during your own encounters with the Iranian justice system. How did you work to humanize the character of Iman (Misagh Zare) while still showing the moral corruption his position demands?

 Mohammad Rasoulof: I think the most important part of my work was to act as an observer. I wanted to bring out the humanity in these complex situations. I never wanted to take revenge on a system that was treating me very cruelly and unjustly. I always have had questions about how the system worked. During all of these years when I was under the pressure of the security and intelligence services, the first question I had in meeting those people was, “how is it that our perspectives are so different?”

Through all the difficult times with prison and interrogations, I never thought these people were demons. I always thought that they are regular people like you and I, except they do not think about what they are doing or their responsibility. They assume that they should just do their part and follow their duty.

HTN: The film required extraordinary bravery from your actors, with some now facing serious consequences. How did you approach working with them knowing the risks, and what conversations did you have about the potential personal cost during preparation?

MR: I really think that we just found each other. It was not like I gave them anything of myself, it was quite the opposite, their courage became an inspiration to me. We were all people who wanted to be free. We wanted to make our art. That was important to us. It is what drew us to one another.

HTN: Women wear hijabs indoors often in Iranian cinema to appease censors, but you deliberately showed women unveiled in private spaces. What other acts of artistic resistance did you weave into the film’s visual language?

MR: The male and female actors touching. Being in the bedroom together and on the bed. Being together in the bath and shower. These are all taboos in Iranian cinema that may seem funny but are boundaries I had to break.

A still from SEED OF THE SACRED FIG

HTN: The missing gun becomes a powerful symbol throughout the film. What drew you to use this specific object as the catalyst for unraveling the family’s dynamics?

 MR: The gun was a symbol of power for me. The father of the family goes and gets a gun to protect himself. When the gun is taken away from him he has lost that power. That is why he’s so angry. Gradually there comes a situation that brings a lot of layers to it. We can think about the role that the new generation plays in confronting these power structures. Meanwhile, we can think about the split in between generations. I believe the entire time the gun acts as an element that brings attention to these ideas.

HTN: There is a sequence about 50 minutes in where the Mom, Najmeh (Soheila Golestani), has to remove the buckshot from their friend’s face. The intense close ups, the music, the slow motion all build to that sobering shot of the fragments of bullets dropping in the sink. What was your thinking here?

MR: The suffering that had been imposed on the young protesters by the state makes the daughter steal the gun. I believe it is at that moment the daughter realizes that these powers play a role in their family structure. On the other hand the older daughter learns how to stand against her father. Meanwhile it is the mother of the family who still has these motherly instincts and emotions. The music that you hear in that scene is a Kurdish lullaby as if coming from the Kurdish mother of that friend from afar. The direction of the sound changes and it’s as if it’s coming from different mothers surrounding the girl. The rubber bullets signify the number of times that this violence happened and the intensity of this violence. The scene happens in front of the same mirror that the mother and father look at as they make some critical choices toward the end of the film. the mother decides at that moment she cannot take her motherly affection too far with this girl as it may endanger her own life.

HTN: Shortly after there are two powerful sequences. The first where the mom tries to convince the father to check on Sana (Setareh Maleki). He refuses and also claims even if he wanted to, it’s out of his hands. This is followed by the confrontation at the dinner table, which feels like a real turning point for the family. What was important to you in these sequences?

 MR: There are a series of casualties in this film. The mother has to choose between her human emotions and the status of her husband. In the scene where you see the mother and father in the bathroom as she shaves him, and dresses him, it’s as if she is becoming his accomplice. A few moments later you see this split and confrontation between two generations. The first cracks of this family come during this scene.

HTN: Despite its dark ending, the film gave me a feeling of hope.  What gives you hope when you look at Iran’s current situation, and how did you work to convey that hope in the film?

 MR: I think the new generation is waiting for an opportunity to act on its requests and desires for the state. Unlike the previous generation whose ideals have led to death, the current generation wants to lead to life.

 – Jack Schenker (@YUNGOCUPOTIS) 

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Jack Schenker is based in Los Angeles, CA. He has worked in the film industry for 5 years at various companies including Mighty Engine, Film Hub, and Grandview. Jack continues to write for Hammer to Nail, conducting interviews with prominent industry members including Steve James, Riley Keough, Christian Petzold, and Ira Sachs. His dream is to one day write and direct a horror film based on the work of Nicolas Winding Refn and Dario Argento. He directed his first short film this year titled Profondo. Jack's favorite filmmakers include Werner Herzog, Wim Wenders, Denis Villeneuve, Bong Joon Ho, David Lean, John Carpenter, Ari Aster, Jordan Peele, and Robert Altman to name a few. Look out for Jack on Twitter (aka X). You can see the extent of Jack's film knowledge on Letterboxd, where he has written over 1000 reviews and logged over 1600 films.

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