While media outlets around the world announced that Asghar Farhadi's The Salesman has been nominated to win a prize at this year’s Academy Awards, one conservative Iranian paper took the opportunity to launch fresh attacks on Farhadi. On January 25, Honarmand newspaper reported on its front page that the Iranian filmmaker’s attempts to win recognition would end in “nothing," just as it had in the 2016 Golden Globe Awards.
As an aside, in small print several pages into the paper, it also reported that the Academy had nominated The Salesman, which Variety describes as a “neorealistic detective yarn,” for best foreign language film.
Farhadi regularly comes under fire from Iranian authorities and conservative art critics, although he says he faced no obstacles during the making of The Salesman. In 2012, a ceremony to mark Farhadi’s Oscar win for his film A Separation was cancelled in Iran. Iranian critics said the film insulted the Islamic Republic, objecting to its depiction of a society fraught with tense gender politics and hardship.
The Oscars will take place on February 26 in Hollywood, California.
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