About 17,000 members of the global film community have signed a petition calling on the Islamic Republic Judiciary to cancel the prison sentences of Iranian filmmakers Jafar Panahi and Mohammd Rasoulof.
The Cannes Film Festival website reports that signatories include such prominent filmmakers as Francis Ford Coppola, Costa Gavras, David Cronenberg, Alejandro Gonz�lez Inarritu, David Lynch, Marjan Satrapi, Aki Kurismaki and Lars Von Trier.
The website condemns the “oppressive, shameful and intolerable” sentences issued against the Iranian filmmakers. It says the French-born campaign has quickly gained international scope and will continue to spread until Panahi and Rasoulof are freed and allowed to resume their filmmaking.
