Manuscripts Don’t Burn

Mohammad Rasoulof, Iran, 2013, 125 min, in Farsi with English subtitles

Cannes Film Festival 2013, Un Certain Regard, FIPRESCI prize; Fribourg International Film Festival 2014, Don Quixote Award; Hamburg Film Festival 2013, Political Film Award

INSPIRED BY TRUE EVENTS

Kasra is an Iranian author who manages to secretly write down his memoirs, although being under strict monitoring by the security service. His stories are related to his time in jail as a political prisoner, as well as different events connected to his life as an intellectual in Iran. He has prepared everything in order to publish these writings and is getting ready to leave the country. Several people in the security service apparatus manage to uncover Kasra’s plans. They will do anything to destroy his manuscripts.

Due to censorship in Iran, and in order to maintain the safety of the crew and cast, these have renounced from being named in these credits.

SCREENDAILY : « Manuscripts Don’t Burn demands to be seen as widely as possible »

THR : « Rasoulof’s most angry work to date. Rasoulof has kicked a hornet’s nest with this film »

VARIETY : « A brave, challenging picture that makes the viewer complicit in the action, and perhaps the first film since the declaration of the Islamic Republic to confront so directly the brutality of the feared security apparatus »