The French film industry has rallied together in support of women in Iran who are protesting the death of Mahsa Amini while in police custody.
More than 50 of France’s most famous stars, including Juliette Binoche, Marion Cotillard, Isabelle Adjani, Berenice Bejo, Julie Gayet, Isabelle Huppert and Charlotte Gainsbourg, have cut off locks of their hair in a video captioned #Hairforfreedom.
Meanwhile, more than 1,000 French film industry professionals and organisations have signed a strongly-worded letter in solidarity with Iranian women.
The #Hairforfreedom video begins with an image of Binoche holding up her hair then cutting through it with scissors and declaring “for freedom.” It ends with an image from French-Iranian director and artist Marjane Satrapi whose award-winning Persepolis also dealt with issues of women’s rights in modern Iran.
The video initiative was organised by international human rights lawyer Richard Sedillot and French barristers Julie Couturier and Christiane Feral Schuhl.
Mahsa Amini
Twenty two-year-old Amini died in police custody in Iran in September after being arrested for not wearing her hijab in accordance with the country’s strict religious laws and letting part of her hair hang out. Reports say that more than 130 people have died in Iran in subsequent protests.
The Cannes Film Festival’s Thierry Frémaux, Wild Bunch’s Vincent Maraval and filmmakers including Alice Diop, Julia Ducournau, Jacques Audiard, Michel Gondry and Michel Hazanavicius are among those to put their names to the French industry’s petition against the “heavy, brutal and deadly crackdown ordered by the Iranian authorities.”
The letter pledges their support for “the Iranian women who are presently fighting for their freedom, risking their lives, and for the Iranian people who bravely stand up for them.”
The letter gathered hundreds of signatures soon after being published and continues to draw support.
