‘The Seed of the Sacred Fig’ Review: Mohammad Rasoulof’s Act of Defiance [Festival du Nouveau Cinéma 2024] — FilmSpeak

At the end of the screening of Mohammad Rasoulof’s The Seed of the Sacred Fig at the Festival du Nouveau Cinéma in Montreal, an audience member began to chant “Femmes, vie, liberté” (Woman, Life, Freedom). Most of the audience quickly responded with the same. This led to an enthusiastic standing ovation, not only for the film itself but for Rasoulof’s courage in exposing the truth of Iran’s media censorship and what is occurring in the wake of Mahsa Amini’s death by the state police for allegedly ‘improperly’ wearing a Hijab. 

In approaching The Seed of the Sacred Fig, one must understand that women have been forced to wear the Hijab since 1979, and severe penalties are taken if they do not respect this. But the law has been challenged since its very inception, with women taking to the streets and removing their Hijabs, which is, in this case, defined by them as a symbol of marginalization and oppression. This, of course, is not reported by the media, which parrot the official talking points of Iran’s authoritarian regime, while social media is also filtered to reflect state propaganda. That said, some videos are found and demonstrate what’s truly occurring before they are quickly removed. 

This is how The Seed of the Sacred Fig begins, with Rasoulof juxtaposing his story with frequently distressing real-life videos of protests, which see citizens being brutally beaten (if not killed) on the streets for refusing to wear the Hijab and people documenting the truth shot by the police. One such video films the police beating a citizen on the street, who eventually looks at the person filming and shoots them without hesitation. Meanwhile, the media does not talk about any of the protests occurring and gaslights its citizens into thinking, for example, that a woman died of a stroke inside a police station when she was, in reality, beaten to death.