The trial of filmmaker Ashgar Farhad threatens the possibility of prison for plagiarism

Iranian Director Გmir Received a lawsuit about plagiarism from his former student, Azad Masihzadeh, who said he got the idea for his film from a documentary made for class work. Გmir Tells the story of a man imprisoned for debt who, when issuing a permit, tries to persuade a creditor to forgive him; In those days he finds a bag of gold coins and instead of using them to pay off his debt, he seeks out a patron to return them. Is a story based on real events.

The Iranian director premiered in 2021 at the Cannes Film Festival ᲒmirReceiving a grand jury prize. The script of the film belongs only to Asgar Farhad himself.

Before accepting the plagiarism lawsuit, Farhad, in turn, sued Azad Masihzadeh for defamation and showed that he believed he had copied the idea for the film from his documentary. Farhad lost this lawsuit because he did not consider that the image of the famous Iranian director was damaged. The documentary, which Masihzadeh shot in 2014, was the title All winners, all losers And exhibited at the Iranian Festival in Shiraz in 2018, can be found in full on YouTube.

The Tehran court found there were signs of plagiarism and upheld the complaint. Kaveh Rad, Farhad’s lawyer, posted on his Instagram that after the media had already published the news two years before the director’s student made his documentary, the story was “publicly owned and no one can claim exclusive property.” He also argues that the court did not consider the complaint by an expert specializing in cinema.

The case will be re-examined first in the Second Criminal Court and then in the Court of Appeals. The verdict against Farhad, which has recently intensified the tone of criticism of the Tehran regime after it showed the popularity of his film, could lead to imprisonment.