Asghar Farhadi spoke about the conflict in his native Iran during the Cannes Film Festival press conference for his new film “Parallel Tales,” saying: “Any murder is a crime.”
It didn’t take long for the Iranian auteur to be asked his thoughts on the war between Iran, the U.S. and Israel. The Oscar winner has been living outside of Iran since 2023, though he said he was in Tehran last week and saw the impact of “two tragic events.”
“One of these events was the death of a number of innocent people, children, members of the civilian population who died in the war. And before this war, we had the death of a number of demonstrators, people who went to the streets to protest, and they were equally innocent but were massacred,” Farhadi said, speaking through a translator. “These two events are extremely painful and will never be forgotten.”
He also mentioned Iran’s retaliation by conducting missile and drone strikes on Israel and expressed sympathy for those victims. “To be up in arms, to express one’s indignation in the face of the death of victims, civilians, innocent people who have died because of the bombing, that doesn’t mean that one is in favor of the execution and the death of demonstrators,” he said. “Similarly, to feel empathy for people who were killed, shot during demonstrations, doesn’t mean you can’t feel empathy for those who died because of the bombing.”
Farhadi concluded: “Any murder is a crime. Under no circumstances can I accept the fact that another human being should lose his or her life, be it a war, be it executions, be it massacres of demonstrators. It’s extremely cruel and tragic to know that in the world today, despite all the progress which we are supposed to have made, every morning we wake up with news of new innocents being killed without any reason whatsoever.”
“Parallel Tales” premiered on Thursday night to a 5.5-minute standing ovation for Farhadi and his French stars, Isabelle Huppert, Virginie Efira, Vincent Cassel, Adam Bessa, Pierre Niney and Catherine Deneuve. The French Drama follows Sylvie (Huppert), who spies on her neighbors across the street to gain inspiration for her new novel. “When she hires young Adam (Bessa) to help her with her daily routine, she has no idea that he will turn her life and her work upside down, until the fiction she had imagined surpasses the reality of them all,” its synopsis continues.
Farhadi has been vocal about the situation in his native Iran before, calling on his fellow directors to speak up. In a statement in April, he wrote: “Attacking a country’s infrastructure is a war crime. Regardless of any beliefs or attitudes, let’s unite to stop this inhumane, illegal and destructive process.”
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