Four Iranian directors are competing in the Academy Awards Best International Feature Film category this year, each representing a different country, with a shortlist of finalists due to be announced on March 2.
Iran submitted Cause of Death: Unknown by Ali Zarnegar after a selection process that excluded films by independent and dissident filmmakers.
Among those left out was the critics’ favorite It Was Just an Accident, secretly filmed by internationally acclaimed director Jafar Panahi, who is banned from filmmaking.
Panahi's drama was in turn submitted to the Oscars by France while fellow dissident filmmaker Alireza Khatami’s The Things You Kill will represent Canada.
Shahram Mokri’s Black Rabbit, White Rabbit has also been selected by Tajikistan.
Panahi’s film, which won the Palme d’Or at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival, was selected as France’s submission from a shortlist that also included Richard Linklater’s Nouvelle Vague and Rebecca Zlotowski’s A Private Life.
Oscars rules allow submissions in the category for productions "largely in the hands of citizens or residents of the submitting country."
The plethora of films by Iranian filmmakers has stoked some criticism, however, as LA Times columnist Glenn Whip wrote in an article titled, "The Oscars’ international feature category is broken. But there’s no easy fix".
"All this leads to a question raised annually: Isn’t there a better way to choose movies for the Oscars’ international feature category, one that sidesteps the politics of repressive regimes and produces a list of films that are the best the world has to offer?" he wrote.
The global presence of Iranian directors highlights both the richness of Iran’s cinema and the challenges artists face under domestic repression.
Earlier this month, an association of independent Iranian filmmakers called on the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) to overhaul how it accepts films from countries under authoritarian rule, warning that the current system legitimizes state-controlled cinema bodies.
In a letter to the Academy, the Iranian Independent Filmmakers Association (IIFMA) said the Farabi Cinema Foundation, which oversees Oscar submissions from Iran, enforces censorship and sidelines independent voices at home and abroad.
Many Iranian talents, facing censorship and restrictions at home, have fled abroad. Panahi remains in Iran under travel and work restrictions, but his French residence gives him the chance to participate in the Oscar submission process.
Mohammad Rasoulof, whose The Seed of the Sacred Fig was Germany's Oscars submission last year, was previously sentenced to prison and now lives and works in Germany.
While Iranian cinema has global reputation for its exploration of social themes, independent filmmakers operate under a system of strict censorship at home.
The government requires script approval and screening permits by the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance, punishing those who challenge political or social taboos with bans, imprisonment or exile.
