By WILLIAM YONG

Source: The New York Times

October 3, 2010

TEHRAN — Cultural officials have lifted a ban on film production by Asghar Farhadi, an award-winning director, that was imposed after he made public remarks supporting opposition filmmakers last month.

The Ministry of Islamic Culture and Guidance said it lifted the ban last week after the director apologized.

“Authorization to continue making the film by Farhadi has been issued,” the ministry said in a statement reported Saturday by the ILNA news agency. The film in reference was Mr. Farhadi’s latest project, “Separation of Nader and Simin,” about a couple getting a divorce.

It was unclear precisely how Mr. Farhadi had apologized. He had previously said his remarks had been misconstrued.

The ban laid bare the deep divisions between Iranian artists and the government in the aftermath of the disputed June 2009 presidential election and the political crackdown that followed.

Mr. Farhadi won the Silver Bear for best director in Berlin last year for “About Elly,” a film that had languished for months in the hands of ’s censors before gaining permission to be screened last summer. But he aroused the ire of cultural officials and hard-liners during an acceptance speech after being named best director at an award ceremony in September organized by Iran’s House of Cinema, a guild of filmmakers.

During the speech, Mr. Farhadi called for the return of the filmmaker to Iran. He is in a self-imposed exile and has been one of the most ardent supporters of Iran’s opposition Green Movement since last year’s election.

Mr. Farhadi also expressed hope that the director would soon return to making movies. Mr. Panahi was imprisoned for more than three months earlier this year, apparently for making a film without government authorization. In 2009, he was banned from traveling outside the country after being photographed at the Montreal Film Festival wearing a green scarf.

The hard-line newspaper Kayhan, widely considered to be a voice for Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah , lambasted Mr. Farhadi for “expressing opinions similar to foreign satellite TV channels,” in a reference to news networks like and the ’s Persian-language service. Those networks are widely vilified by Iranian authorities as weapons of “psychological warfare” waged by the West.