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ICFR QUARTERLY NEWSLETTER — #1-2025
Rolling with the punches of the world
Ever more need for defending our rights and freedoms
cases — updates — exposure — get involved
Dear partners, supporters & friends,
These past few months, the ICFR inboxes have mirrored the state of the world we inhabit in no uncertain terms — a clear and undeniable surge in requests for help from film workers across the globe, in line with the palpable increase in human rights violations and authoritarianism in far too many places. Filmmakers, whose medium reaches (relatively) easily across borders and into minds far and wide, find themselves under particular scrutiny from ill-meaning governments, leading to unwarranted arrests, unlawful detainment, prosecution under the guise of the law, and various sorts of physical and psychological abuse that cannot bear the light of the day.
As ever, it is the ICFR’s mission to pull these injustices into the very light. At the same time, we are also seeing that visibility and exposure in and of itself is not necessarily enough to make a direct difference. In Iran, filmmakers Maryam Moghadam & Behtash Sanaeeha have received a verdict in the trial concerning their Berlinale-awarded (and allegedly “obscene” and “anti-state propaganda”) film My Favourite Cake — with the global outcry in their support (more than 18,000 signatures at the time of writing, including those of Pedro Almodóvar, Hiam Abbass, Juliette Binoche & Ali Abbasi) arguably impacting the verdict, but not yet resulting in their charges being dropped altogether, as they should be. Read more about their case and their current sentence below.
The recent Academy Award win for the Palestinian-Israeli documentary No Other Land has only escalated the violence of Israeli settlers and armed forces against the people of Masafer Yatta in the West Bank — including the Palestinian co-directors Basel Adra and Hamdan Ballal, with the latter being attacked, violently arrested and detained only two weeks ago. The immediate outpouring of global support — which included petitions, solidarity statements, fundraising screenings, as well as a score of AMPAS members holding their own Academy accountable for its obvious failure to stand up for their Palestinian colleague — helped the lawyers in getting Ballal released after 24 hours. However, the threats levelled against the filmmakers, as well as against all other Palestinian cultural workers and civilians, are far from over. Read more below.
And those are only the filmmakers already spotlighted and visible among the global film community. Shrouded in even more worrisome darkness are our colleagues who are already incarcerated at this time: in China, Ikram Nurmehmet and Chen Pinlin; in earthquake-stricken Myanmar, Shin Daewe; in Turkey, Çiğdem Mater; in Afghanistan, Sayed Rahim Saidi; in Iran, Zahra Shafiaee Dehaghani; in Palestine, Abdallah Motan.
Each one of them is enduring the horrible outcomes of unjust persecution, their prison sentences ranging anywhere between three and eightteen years (or even without specified end dates altogether). Behind the scenes, the ICFR is monitoring even more cases in many corners of the world, with new campaigns on standby for whenever global support is desirable and needed. We also employ much less visible advocacy and lobbying, so as to protect our film colleagues’ identities and not do any more harm to their already complicated predicaments.
Lastly, as of March this year, we are thrilled to welcome our newly-minted ICFR Advisory Committee — with Adam Shapiro (US, Artists At Risk Connection), Julie Nederkoorn (NL, Movies That Matter/Human Rights Film Network) and Khalid Abdalla (UK, actor/activist) as the inaugural members. Their experience, network and know-how will be of great significance to the impact and effectiveness of the work that we do.
As always, we greatly value your continued support for our mission, and we have been devising new and concrete ways to be involved — read more further down this quarterly newsletter. Even the smallest gestures make a difference.
INDIVIDUAL Cases
Across the board, there have been developments for many of the filmmakers on our current roster — not all of it for the worse, but definitely all still demanding our attention and support.
— IRAN After a full year of lobbying by the filmmaker’s relatives and the ICFR, we can finally share the good news that filmmaker NAVID MIHANDOUST has been released from prison and pardoned by the authorities this last March 31st. He has served a little over one year of his original 3,5-year sentence, a punishment in response to his having made an unreleased documentary about the “Women/Life/Freedom”-movement. The ICFR team congratulates Navid and his family on this long-overdue resolution; we hope that Navid, as well as his Iranian colleague film workers, will be spared such ordeals in the future as they make the films they need to make.
⭕ IRAN There is still a lot hanging in the balance for My Favourite Cake filmmakers MARYAM MOGHADAM & BEHTASH SANAEEHA, whose first round of court trials has concluded on March 30th. The judge’s verdict sentenced the filmmaking duo to 14 months imprisonment for “propaganda against the Islamic Republic”, and sentenced both them and their producer, GHOLAMREZA MOUSAVI, to another 12 months for creating and distributing “obscene content” as well as several monetary fines amounting to 800 million IRR (approx. 17,000,- EUR).
The pressure from both the international and Iranian film communities, as well as from the general public all across the world, has had an impact on the court proceedings; all the prison sentences in this case are suspended for five years, which gives the three filmmakers some breathing room to either appeal the verdict or seek out other strategies. The ICFR is unwavering in its support for these filmmakers, as well as with other prosecuted Iranian film colleagues such as ZAHRA SHAFIEE DEHAGHANI and MOSTAFA AL-AHMAD, and will continue to monitor their situation in the time to come.
⭕ CHINA The Chinese authorities have unmistakably been increasing their efforts to stifle the voices and stories of filmmakers, journalists and press freedom defenders across the board. After the arrest and sentencing of Uyghur filmmaker IKRAM NURMEHMET this past winter — currently imprisoned on the basis of a false confession, forced out of him under torture, regarding his film studies abroad — the authorities have also cracked down on Chinese documentary filmmaker CHEN PINLIN.
In a closed trial, CHEN PINLIN has been sentenced to 3,5 years in prison for “picking quarrels and provoking trouble” through his documentary Urumqi Middle Road, on the nationwide (and peaceful) “White Paper Protests” that followed China’s zero-COVID policy and the increasingly harsh environment of surveillance and censorship in the country. We urgently decry the violation of the human rights of both Ikram Nurmehmet and Chen Pinlin — as well as at least 124 other film workers, journalists and press freedom defenders currently detained in China — and call on the global film community to stand with our Chinese colleagues and demand their immediate and unconditional release.
⭕/— MYANMAR At the whims of Myanmar’s military dictatorship, some 6,000 prisoners have been released this January to commemorate the 77th anniversary of Myanmar’s independence from British colonial rule. Although there were few political prisoners among those released, there have been somewhat positive developments for documentary filmmaker SHIN DAEWE and 143 others imprisoned for political reasons; they have seen their unfathomable life sentences shortened to fifteen years. With deep concern for her health and well-being, we continue to campaign for Shin Daewe’s immediate and unconditional release, and we are grateful for colleagues like PEN International to be doing the same.
⭕ TURKEY There is still no respite for Turkish film producer ÇIĞDEM MATER, who is reaching the third “anniversary” of her prison sentence just this month. Though requests for retrials and appeals have been consistently refused, we continue to stand with her and express our hopes that the current momentum of resistance and mass protests will lead to the release of political prisoners such as Çiğdem.
And as we’ve seen in January, the country’s grip on its filmmakers is persistent, as the previously incarcerated filmmaker ERHAN ÖRS was stopped at the last minute from leaving Turkey to attend his and his film collective’s world premiere of the anthology film SEEN UNSEEN at this year’s International Film Festival Rotterdam in The Netherlands — despite no official charges remaining against him at this point.
⭕ PALESTINE Amid the ongoing violence of the Israeli authorities, armed forces and individual settlers against the Palestinian people, there is a particular targeting of Palestinians with cameras, pens and reach. The total number of killed (video)journalists in Gaza has recently risen to 225; the Palestinian co-directors (HAMDAN BALLAL & BASEL ADRA) of the Oscar-winning documentary No Other Land are consistently being attacked in their West Bank hometown of Masafer Yatta; and elsewhere in the West Bank, filmmaker ABDALLAH MOTAN was arrested and put in military detainment without charges or sentence, and only recently allowed access to legal representation. We urge the global film community to keep speaking up for their Palestinian colleagues, as well as for any Palestinian cultural worker and civilian targeted by Israel’s violent persecution.
MEDIA ATTENTION
The increased necessity for the campaigns and efforts of organizations like ours has also been visible across mainstream media and the engagement of people worldwide. Last month, our petitioning campaign for Iranian filmmakers Maryam Moghadam & Behtash Sanaeeha was covered extensively in trade publications such as The Hollywood Reporter, Deadline and Screen International, as well as in a comprehensive bit of writing on the current state of Iranian cinema and its oft-prosecuted filmmakers in The New York Times.
This media attention has had a direct impact on the successfulness of our campaign for these filmmakers: it catapulted the amount of signatures on the petition within days to over 18,000, and it reached all the way to the Iranian Revolutionary Court whose sentencing ended up less severe than it was feared and expected to be.
The ICFR is looking for media outlets to join our mission as direct media partners — taking it upon themselves to find space in their channels of communication for each and every one of our campaigns, cases and updates.
➡️ Should this be of interest to you and your media outlet, or should you want to recommend a media outlet, please get in touch with us directly!
GET INVOLVED
FESTIVALS & SCREENINGS
For the visibility of our filmmakers and our mission, the ICFR team is always open to collaborations — whether it be speaking at your festival or film industry event (like we have done last month at Movies That Matter in The Hague and IMPACTE! in Barcelona), co-organizing screenings or talks (like the "Cinema and the Rise of Authoritarianism" panel at this January's IFFR), or providing you with the materials needed to raise visibility, funds and support on your own.
✉️ Get in touch with us directly for more information re: collaborations, speaking engagements, film screenings, and so on.
➡️ Jump over to our Downloads page for easy-to-use info slides on each filmmaker the ICFR is currently campaigning for; these slides can be projected at your festival event, industry session, film screening, and so on.
PARTNERSHIPS
The impact of the ICFR's activities is due in no small part to our ever-expanding support system of partners, sponsors, affiliate organizations, media outlets and campaign followers. Involvement with the ICFR can take the shape of a strategic partnership (with annual contributions starting at 500 EUR), as well as an official affiliation on an in-kind basis, exchanging network, knowledge and communication channels.
➡️ Feel free to reach out to us should your organization be interested in joining the ICFR's mission as a Strategic or Affiliate Partner.
➡️ Make sure to follow us on social media: Instagram + LinkedIn.
DONATIONS
Throughout the year, the ICFR's mission is greatly helped by individual contributions as well; your donations help our operations, in particular our aim to set up the resources to support film workers at risk with micro-grants for their immediate needs (as we have done in previous years with the Emergency Film Fund supporting the film workers of Ukraine).
Your donation can be made out to:
Stichting ICFR
IBAN: NL 02 TRIO 0320 0470 40
BIC/SWIFT: TRIONL2U
The ICFR is registered in the Netherlands as an ANBI — Public Benefit Organization.
Your donation is therefore tax-deductible. More information can be found on our website.
As always, we are grateful for your continued support in demanding the immediate release, protection, safety and freedom of all the filmmakers around the world currently in dire need of our support. We will not stop fighting for them.
International Coalition for Filmmakers at Risk
www.icfr.international
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