filmmakers
Well-known Iranian director Mehrjui and wife killed
The Iranian film director Dariush Mehrjui and his wife Wahideh Mohammadifar take part in a meeting of film directors in Tehran in 2015. photo
© Abdolvahed Mirzazadeh/Iranian Students’ News Agency, ISNA/AP/dpa
With the film “The Cow” from 1969, he won the audience award at the Venice Film Festival in 1971 and became internationally known. Now he and his wife were found dead in their villa near Tehran.
The well-known director Dariush Mehrjui and his wife were killed in Iran. The 83-year-old award-winning filmmaker and Wahideh Mohammadifar were killed in their villa on Saturday near the capital Tehran, Iranian media consistently reported. Accordingly, the police have launched a murder investigation.
According to a report in the newspaper “Shargh”, the Iranian director’s daughter found the couple in the apartment late Saturday evening. The two were stabbed in the neck with a knife or a sharp object, the newspaper reported, citing the Police. The judiciary warned against speculation about the background to the crime.
Mehrjui was one of the pioneers of the New Iranian Film, into which he introduced neorealism. With his film “The Cow” from 1969, he won the audience award at the Venice Film Festival in 1971 and thus became internationally known in the scene.