HRANA News Agency – On November 23, 2016, Keyvan Karimi, prominent Iranian filmmaker who was summoned to the law enforcement of branch 1 of Shahid Moghadas court in Evin prison during a phone call to provide some explanations, was arrested and transferred to the quarantine ward of Evin prison to serve his 1 year in prison and 223 lashes.
According to the report of Human Rights Activists News Agency in Iran (HRANA), Keyvan Karimi was sentenced to 6 years in prison and 223 lashes on charge of “propaganda against the Islamic Republic and blasphemy” due to creating a documentary about the history of graffiti in Tehran called “Writing on the City”, whose sentence was reduced to one year in prison and five years of probation and 223 lashes at the appeal court.
Karimi in an interview with Reuters, confirmed the verdict of appeal court and announced that he would not leave the country and would serve his sentence.
Keyvan Karimi was arrested at his home for first time after the movie preview “Writing on City” was released on YouTube. He spent 12 days in solitary confinement in Evin prison and was then released on the bail.
The 6 years imprisonment sentence of Keyvan Karimi caused many international reactions. The first reaction was a statement by a group of philosophers, sociologists, writers and human rights activists, titled “Poetry is a crime against the state”. After that, the National Association directors, screenwriters, actors and factors cinema in France and Italy and the National Association of Italian Film Journalists and Critics in a statement protested against the verdict against Karimi and demanded his punishment be abolished. Also 45 parliamentarians of Europe signed a joint statement, expressed their concerns about Karimi and called his release. In this regard, Punto de Vista festival in collaboration with the Foundation “Navarro” and “Jean Vigo” family, late Polish filmmaker, launched a campaign in support of Keyvan Karimi and invited the 223 world famous director to participate at creating a short film called “word, the whip” to protest against the sentence of 223 lashes for the filmmaker by recording a word by the camera and sending it to festival. On the eve of the sixty-ninth Cannes Film Festival, the documentary section of the festival jury in a press statement called for continued international efforts to abolish the filmmaker’s sentence.
The documentary of Writing on the City is about historical account of the early graffiti in Tehran since 1979 Iranian (Islamic) revolution until Iran’s Green Movement and has been shown in numerous international festivals. The latest one was at the International Film Festival of Vienna in Austria.
Other works of the filmmaker include the film “The Adventures of husband and wife”, “Broken Borders” and his latest film, “drums”. Drum, the first movie made by Keyvan Karimi, was released for the first time at week part of the Venice Film Festival Critics. The movie is about a lawyer whose life changed after receiving the package. In 2016 while filming the movie, Karimi was under security pressure in Tehran because of the condemnation. The movie is his first feature film which was noticed by film critics in Venice. Jean-Michel Frodun, former editor of Cahiers du cinéma named this effect as the Best Film of Venice Film Festival.
Karimi is now in prison to serve his one-year imprisonment sentence.