Dariush Mehrjui, 84 years old, famous Iranian director, icon of local cinema and one of the founders of the Iranian New Wave of the early 70s, was stabbed to death with his wife in the villa where he lived in the municipality of Meshkindasht of Karaj, in the province of Alborz, west of Tehran, local media reported last night.
The police arrived at the scene alerted by Mehrjui’s daughter, who found the bodies. Alborz police chief Hamid Hadavand said the evidence indicates the murder was carried out by unidentified people, with knife wounds to the neck and other parts of the body.
Before the attack the woman, Vahideh Mohammadifar, a writer, had posted on social media that the couple had been threatened with a knife by a non-Iranian individual, presumably an Afghan citizen.
Amehrjui has made films that have won awards at Iranian and international festivals. The Islamic Republic has banned some of her films, including her latest film in 2019, Laminarwhich was finally released on screens, with some parts censored.
Mehrjui had said in an interview that they had the strongest impact on him when he was a child bike thieves by Vittorio De Sica. Then The cow1969, The postman1972. His acclaimed film The Circle1974, and his 1983 French documentary were successfully screened at international film festivals, including the Venice International Film Festival.
His other famous films include The Pear Tree, Hamoon, The Tenants, Sara, Pari, Leila, Mom’s Guest and Santouri. The latter, which told the life of a young drug addict, was never authorized to be screened.
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