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This interview with Iranian filmmaker Asghar Farhadi took place a few days after the November election. There was a question of whether Farhadi would be able to attend the Oscars ceremony due to President Trump's temporary ban on travel from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Iran, but on Sunday, Farhadi told the New York Timeshe will not attend the ceremony, even if exceptions are made. His full statement is here. Before Farhadi made his statement, an Academy spokesperson responded in this statement:

"The Academy celebrates achievement in the art of filmmaking, which seeks to transcend borders and speak to audiences around the world, regardless of national, ethnic, or religious differences. As supporters of filmmakersand the human rights of all peoplearound the globe, we find it extremely troublingthat Asghar Farhadi, the director of the Oscar-winning film from IranA Separation, alongwith the cast and crew of this year's Oscar-nominated filmThe Salesman,couldbe barred from entering the country because of their religion or country of origin."

Iranian filmmaker Asghar Fahardi is no stranger to American audiences and Academy Award voters.

He wrote and directed the 2011 movie, A Separation, which won the foreign language Oscar. And his new movie, The Salesman, was just nominated in the same category for this years awards.

The main characters in his new movie include a theater troupe that's mounting an Iranian production of Arthur Miller's "Death of a Salesman." The story also includes the sexual assault of the lead female character, named Rana. The Frame's John Horn spoke with Farhadi several weeks ago in Los Angeles, just days after the U.S. presidential election. Farhadi speaks English but is much more conversant in Farsi so his answers were translated by Dorna Khazeni.

The most important section of "Death of a Salesman," the one that had the strongest impact on me, was precisely the scenes you're referring to about his relationship to New York City. In the same way that New York at that time was undergoing change, Tehran too is undergoing this very rapid change. In the story, Willy Loman, who can't make his piece with the rapid rate of change is getting left behind. What's true of Tehran today is that the roots are not being modernized. It's only the appearances that are being modernized. A lot of modern building have been made, so much so that when a person comes to Tehran for the first time someone from abroad they're shocked at the appearance. But the actual tradition and the inside of people hasn't changed, and there's a discrepancy there between those two things.

The people of Iran have a great deal of information about the people of America. As opposed to the people of America, who know very little about the people of Iran. I had to spend a few hours at the airport in Tehran [recently] and I was watching people at the airport. And I realized that they were all intently watching all the TV monitors and they were all looking at their mobiles, following the election news from America. This is actually a very positive curiosity, to want to know one another. But not through the media. In Iran, Arthur Miller is extremely well-known. Other American writers and playwrights are extremely well-known, as are American filmmakers. Maybe one reason for this is, since the politicians are warring with each other, the people have on the contrary tried to find a way of approaching each other.

What has occurred the phenomena is that the picture they have of Iran has to do with Iranian politics, and they impose that on the notion of the people of Iran. But these are two very different images. The people are utterly different. It is my belief that each film has the capacity to show a small section of the society in which it's made to the rest of the world. Of course this is a relative picture of that society. But with a number of films, you can arrive at a multidimensional, fuller picture of that society.

A certain number of commercial films get made that are just for pure entertainment. They rarely have problems. There are a number of independent films that are made as well. Some of them meet with some difficulties. This is a challenge between the filmmakers, vis-a-vis the system, to make the film that they have in mind in spite of the limitations. These very limitations have resulted in the filmmakers developing a very unique language over the years that stands out compared to films made elsewhere. Just by way of example, in [my] film, I could not have shown the scene with Rana in the shower and the man entering. But, unconsciously, by virtue of not being able to show that scene, it turned into my discovering a new film language. This is not meant as approbation of the limitations. In the long-term, limitations are always going to destroy creativity. But we can't deny that it has also led to some original filmmaking.

This story has been updated.

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