Famous Iranian director Asghar Farhadi has been cleared of accusations of plagiarism for his film A Hero made by one of his students, according to a press release published Wednesday. “The verdict in the case of accusations of copyright infringement in the film A Hero has been rendered and the work has been completely cleared of these accusations,” indicates the text published by the director’s communications agency.
In 2022, a former student of the filmmaker, Azadeh Masihzadeh, accused him of plagiarism by claiming that his film was inspired by his documentary All Winners All Losers. Seven experts appointed by the Iranian courts “unanimously rejected all of the plaintiff’s claims,” according to the same press release.
A Hero tells the story of an inmate who becomes famous after finding a purse of gold coins and giving it to its owner instead of keeping it for himself, despite his extreme poverty. “When an event has taken place, and it is reported in the press, it belongs to the public domain,” defended the filmmaker during the Cannes Film Festival in 2022. “A hero is a free interpretation of this story, like this person’s documentary, there is no question of copyright,” he continued.
According to the statement, the prosecution was “based primarily on videos of Farhadi’s workshop sessions,” but the plaintiff had “altered these images for her own benefit,” and the court “therefore found this evidence invalid.”
Aged 51, the director of A Separation has won a multitude of awards among the most prestigious in cinema, including the Oscars for best foreign language film in 2011 and 2016. A hero received the Grand Prix du Festival in 2021. Cannes, the second most prestigious prize after the Palme d’Or.