An occasional writer's journal

An Iranian filmmaker who became the voice in the west of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s leading election challenger has dedicated a prestigious social justice award to opponents and victims of the Tehran regime.

Mohsen Makhmalbaf, who directed the acclaimed 2001 film Kandahar, was presented with the 2009 Freedom to Create Prize by Bianca Jagger at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London on November 25.

Mohsen Makhmalbaf

He dedicated the award to Ayatollah Ali Montazeri, a rival of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and pledged to use his £50,000 prize money to help victims of the brutal crackdown on protesters following Iran’s June 12 presidential election.

Cited by The Daily Telegraph, Makhmalbaf said, “People of my country are killed, imprisoned, tortured and raped just for their votes. Every award I receive means an opportunity for me to echo their voices to the world, asking for democracy for Iran and peace for the world.”

The award honours people working in the creative arts who have risked great personal danger to pursue social change. Makhmalbaf is among a group of high-profile artists who have spoken publicly against the regime ruled by Khamenei and the man they regard as his public servant, Ahmadinejad.

The exiles include Narges Kalhor, the 25-year-old daughter of Ahmadinejad’s cultural advisor, whose film about torture, Rake, was based on the famous Franz Kafka story, In The Penal Colony. Iran was stung by Kalhor’s decision to defect in October, which coincided with the Nuremberg International Human Rights Film Festival.

It was there that Makhmalbaf was given a lifetime achievement award, but dedicated it to Mehdi Karroubi, one of Ahmadinejad’s election rivals who has repeatedly defied the regime by denouncing vote rigging and pursuing reports of the rape and torture of protesters. Back in Iran, dozens of other artists and intellectuals have either been arrested or chosen to lie low while boycotting state-sponsored cultural events.

A fierce opponent of the Ayatollahs and the principle of a single Supreme Leader, Makhmalbaf was jailed at the age of 17 as a young socialist. He is now working toward peaceful change as a spokesman for Ahmadinejad’s main opponent Mir Hossein Mousavi and his “Sea of Green” movement. He regards Mousavi, an architect and painter, not only as a politician and religious intellectual, but as a fellow artist committed to peaceful reform.

Speaking as the self-declared “voice of Mousavi” via western media, Makhmalbaf has consistently accused Ahmadinejad of staging a coup to rig the June 12 election with the backing of the Revolutionary Guard. He was among the first Iranians to alert the world to the repression meted out to opponents within hours of Ahmadinejad being declared the winner.

Writing in The Guardian, he said, “All the armed forces in Iran are only enough to repress one city, not the whole country. The people are like drops of water coming together in a sea.”

Iranian filmmaker Mohsen Makhmalbaf wins Freedom to Create Prize – Telegraph, November 26

“I speak for Mousavi. And Iran” – The Guardian, June 19