The director Mehrjui and his wife were killed in Iran. President Raisi called on the authorities to quickly clarify the matter. Mehrjui was one of the pioneers of the New Iranian Film.
After the killing of a well-known director and his wife, Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi urged the authorities to quickly investigate. The head of government ordered law enforcement and security agencies to work on the case with “double seriousness and speed,” according to a government statement.
The well-known director Dariush Mehrjui and his wife Wahideh Mohammadifar were killed on Saturday. According to a report in the newspaper “Shargh”, the Iranian director’s daughter found the couple in their villa. The two were stabbed in the neck with a knife or a sharp object, the newspaper reported, citing police.
Two journalists summoned
As the newspaper “Etemad” reported, two senior media representatives were summoned by the judiciary in connection with their reporting on the murder case, including a manager of the newspaper itself. The newspaper “Etemad” reported on Saturday that Mehrjui’s wife Mohammadifar appeared before the death was threatened.
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.