Hello dear friends.

Would you please distribute the following text in any way possible, as you did with the first text.

If you are in contact with those who have boycotted the festival, please send this text to them as well.

Because of state pressures in Iran, we would like to remind you once again to keep the names of the senders hidden.

Many thanks,


Second letter from a number of Iranian filmmakers to the filmmakers around the world

When Ken Loach has renounced to participate in the "Fajr Film Festival" and mentioned the repression of opponents of the Iranian government in various forms (torture, prison rape, killing of people and broadcast of spectacular Stalinist courts on television), as the reason to his protest, the Iranian judiciary had not yet revealed its enormous injustice.

When Philip Lioret boycotted the festival, saying: "this regime is killing culture and the freedom of its people", the two young Iranians were not yet hanged because of their desire to live in freedom.

When Theo Angelopoulos has refused the invitation of "Fajr" since he believed that his participation gives a kind of cultural legitimacy to the Iranian regime, there weren't 9 more people awaiting their execution.

Us Iranian filmmakers, whom are still forced to remain anonymous because of our security, can never imagine how is it possible to show or watch movies in this year's "Fajr" festival, while many Iranian citizens are being held prisoner for months, probably in the list of ordered executions, on charge of filming short moments of what happened during the protests with their cell phones.

We are certain that foreign filmmakers who attended this year's "Fajr" festival, against the will of the people of Iran, were totally unaware of this cruel injustice caused by the censorship of the press in Iran and that they themselves will testify this.

The absence of filmmakers like Ken Loach, Theo Angelopoulos, Philippe Lioret, Godeffroy Cheshire, Elia Suleiman, Mimmo Calopresti, Rashid Mashrawi, Barmak Akram and lots of others who have decided not to participate without publicizing their decision alongside the directors and representatives of Festivals such as Cannes, Venice, Three Continents, etc., is a sign of their sensitivity, understanding and solidarity with the tough situation of Iranian people.

The only words we can use to thank their humanitarian act are those of the poem of "Saadi" carved at the entrance to the headquarters of the United Nations:

Of One Essence is the Human Race,
Thusly has Creation put the Base.
One Limb impacted is sufficient,
For all Others to feel the Mace.


Iranian Filmmakers
February 3, 2010