The Seed of the Sacred Fig Director Mohammad Rasoulof on Filming in Secret and the Repression of the Iranian Republic

In September 2022, a 22-year-old Iranian woman named Mahsa Amini was killed by authorities. She was arrested for alleged non-compliance with the country’s mandatory hijab laws, subsequently collapsing and dying while in their custody. The Iranian government denied any brutality and blamed her death on a pre-existing medical condition, but the young women of Iran knew better.

Amini’s death sparked the Jina (Woman, Life, Freedom) uprising. Those young women led their peers, armed with cell phones and social media, in massive protests against an oppressive regime terrified of losing their firm grasp on the country.

At the time of the demonstrations, director Mohammad Rasoulolf was in prison for criticizing that same government. The movement––with its brave, youthful contingent––inspired the filmmaker, who decided to set his next film amid a fictionalized version of this uprising.

The Seed of the Sacred Fig depicts a clash of generations––the established elders, protecting their institutionalized and reactionary ideology, grapple with their progressive successors. Like in many cultures, this conflict flows beneath the population and erupts at the dinner table. 

The family patriarch, Iman (Missagh Zareh), receives a long-desired promotion in the Iranian judicial system. The high-profile position brings a newfound prosperity to his wife Najmeh (Soheila Golestani) and two daughters Sana (Setareh Maleki) and Rezvan (Mahsa Rostami)––but its dangers seep into the middle-class family and begin tearing it apart from the inside.

Because of this story’s content, filming was forced to be carried out in secret. This required meticulous planning and a production crew whose size feels more appropriate for a student film or slasher shot in the woods. Accounting for these restrictions, Rasolouf relied heavily on interiors and locations outside of the Iranian capital Tehran. In spite of the team’s painstaking diligence, authorities caught onto the project and Rasoulof was forced to flee into self-imposed exile from his home country, along with some members of his crew.

Despite those limitations, The Seed of the Sacred Fig looks better than many of today’s Hollywood productions. The film shifts from family drama to thriller, culminating with a spectacular chase sequence.

As Germany’s Oscar entry opens in U.S. theaters from NEON, I spoke with Rasoulof through an interpreter about his clandestine production and the repression from which he escaped.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity. 

The Film Stage: The film makes several major location changes. I understand that throughout the production you were very aware that you may be arrested and unable to be present for the remainder of the shoot. How did that factor into your planning?

Mohammad Rasoulof: It’s a very detailed screenplay. All the locations were chosen in advance. Everything was very controlled, but in a rather different way from how you’d control a shoot that takes place under normal circumstances. When you’re filming something with all these difficulties, you need a very extensive pre-production period because everything has to happen in secret, without attracting attention. I had chosen every single location that you see in the film well in advance of the shoot. And if there was something that we couldn’t find access to, we would build it. 

For instance, the apartment that the family lives in: we planned it according to the mise-en-scène that I had in mind. The small house that the family lives in when the story begins has its own weight in terms of the development of the narrative. I’ve been making films secretly underground for many years, so I’ve learned lots of tricks.

That’s something I wanted to ask you about. Something I find remarkable about the film is that––in spite of its small, secret production––it looks incredible. Would you tell me about some of the more technical aspects of the filming?

We only used one camera for the entire film. When you’re working with such wide-ranging restrictions you have to make up for everything you want to film but you cannot in other ways. And, of course, directing begins from the moment you’re writing the script of the film.

So for instance: I knew that the characters. at some point, had to come out from the apartment, but at what point in the story is very significant. Then I thought, “Well, I’m very fortunate to be working on a family which would, in reality, leave the house wearing a strict hijab.” Which means when you’re shooting with characters dressed that way, your shoot will not draw much attention on the streets. Especially when you’re working with a very small cast and crew and with very light equipment.

Photo by Godlis, courtesy of the 62nd New York Film Festival

As the story progresses, Iman becomes increasingly hostile towards his own family. Was there a specific moment that you feel he crosses a line from which there’s no going back?

If you look at the story from Iman’s perspective, he’s convinced that he’s protecting his family up to the last seconds of the film. He’s trying to prevent them from drowning in sin. So it really is a war between two generations. The younger generation wants to gain back control of its own life, and the older generation is telling them, “You’re not in a position to make an informed choice as to what is right and what is wrong.” As the conflict between the daughters and the parents increases, the more this confusion increases in equal measure.

The first thing to precipitate a crisis for the father is when they’re having dinner together one evening and, for the first time ever, he hears “no” from one of his daughters. He feels huge insecurity about the fact that his ideas are no longer taken seriously, so he decides to bring his daughters and wife to his ancestral family home where they’ll be far from threats. But it’s also a symbol of returning to tradition; it’s almost as if his family home is always under the shadow of religion. 

There’s a section where the point-of-view shifts to Iman. This is after the gun is lost, and he starts to feel very paranoid. It reminded me a lot of ’70s political thrillers, or even Ray Liotta in Goodfellas. But I also know that you have been followed by the authorities for quite some time. Could you tell me about executing the paranoia he experiences in that moment?

Paranoia is always borne out of fear, and we fear the unknown. So I think it’s not knowing certain things that makes us afraid, and it’s fear that makes Iman become paranoid. In fact there’s a scene where his wife is looking out of the window and asks him, “Did you ever think that if something happens”––i.e. if there’s a regime change, “What will people do to us? “ And Iman’s response is, “That will never happen because we’ll never allow it.”

But when he’s out in public he feels that actually is happening. Almost as if the cover that he’s always received by the system is suddenly taken away and he perceives both himself and his family as being extremely vulnerable. Then things get scarier when he realizes that his family is on the other side, especially the daughters. 

There’s a specularity in the way I built the structure of the film. On the one hand it’s progressing chronologically, so the story is moving forward in time, and yet we’re retreating into Iman’s past––into his backstory where we’re seeing where he came from and which professional steps he took in order to get to where he is.

Where that ends up is in this thrilling chase through the ruins that feels like it belongs in a Bond film. Would you tell me about how you plotted that sequence?

It was very difficult because I was going to be directing it remotely. So––under the guise of being a tourist––I went and explored every nook and cranny by myself sometime before the shoot. I took lots of videos and made a very detailed mise-en-scène with the help of my assistants.

Are people in Iran going to be able to see this film?

Those who want to can certainly find ways to watch it. Clearly not in official cinemas. They’ll have to find a way of downloading it on the web and then watch it on smaller screens. But that’s what happens to many foreign films inside Iran; it’s not unique to my film. Only the Iranian films that comply with censorship are shown in Iranian cinemas.

This film was conceived while you were in an Iranian prison. Would you tell me a bit about your experience?

I spent the first five weeks in solitary confinement in an absolutely tiny cell that only had enough space for me to sleep. That was really difficult. The light was always on and I only had this tiny field blanket that acted as a mattress of sorts. Things got a bit better when I was moved to the general section of the prison, where I was to spend time because of the consequences of my previous films.

This film is unique because of its incredible backstory––your clandestine production and escape from Iran. Much of the coverage focuses on this, and for good reason. But this film is also poignant as well as thrillingly entertaining. Do you think that the story behind it somehow overshadows the film itself?

When you talk to audience members and to the press there will always be questions that may worry you. But because you’re making a film that has to do with censorship, that means that you have to make it in a unique way. You can’t really separate the story of the film and the film itself from the way it was made––also why it was made. It kind of all goes together and I don’t think we can say that one is more important or bigger than the other.

The Seed of the Sacred Fig is now in limited release.