A court in Tehran has sentenced renowned director Saeed Rustai to six months in prison for screening his film Leila et ses freres at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival, Iranian media reported on Tuesday, AFP and Agerpres reported.

Feature film LAyla’s brothers depicts a poor family on the brink of collapse in Iran, which is plunged into a deep economic crisis.

The film has been banned in Iran since its release last year, with authorities citing “violations of participation without permission (…) in Cannes and then in Munich”.

Most analysts, however, believe that the Islamist regime decided to ban the film because it appears to have been inspired by the deep economic crisis that followed the reimposition of US sanctions under former US President Donald Trump, a deterioration in living standards that led to mass protests in 2020.

“The Tehran Revolutionary Court sentenced Said Rustai and Javad Norouzbeigi, the film’s director and producer. Layla’s brothers up to six months in prison,” the reformist daily Etemad reported on its website.

Rustai and Norozbeigi were convicted of “facilitating opposition propaganda against the Islamic system” in Iran.

Iran has banned Said Rustai from communicating with people from the world of cinema

However, Etemad reports that the court has decided that the two directors will serve only part of their sentences, about nine days, and the rest will be served on five years’ probation.

“During the suspension period, the defendants are required to refrain from activities related to the committed crime and not to communicate with persons working in the field of cinematography,” Etemad said.

The verdict can be appealed within “20 days from the moment of communication,” the daily reported.

Said Rustai, 34, is best known for directing the 2019 film Just 6.5 (“La Loi de Téhéran”), a thriller about the drug trade and its suppression by the Iranian state.

For your film Layla’s brothers Said Rustai received the Fipresci Award, awarded by the International Federation of Film Critics, in May 2022.