On Tuesday the Cannes Best Actress winner took the stage next to Sofie Gråbøl and other film personalities in solidarity with the Iranian people and detained artists in Iran.


Herself a victim of persecution in Iran, now living in exile in Paris, Ebrahimi has become one of the strongest international voices of the movement "Women, Life, Freedom".

Prior to the screening of the Göteborg-selected Iranian film Subtraction by Mani Haghighi, she read a statement (read in full here https://solidarityiran.wordpress.com/) calling for support against the oppression of Iranian civilians and artists from the current regime.

Next to her were 20+ international film personalities including her fellow jury member and actress Sofie Gråbøl, Gizem Erdogan, Swedish/Iranian documentary filmmaker Nahid Persson, and Göteborg Film Festival artistic director Jonas Holmberg.

"We, artists, writers, academics, and cultural practitioners from across disciplines and various countries, support the call of our Iranian colleagues to stand in solidarity with their struggle against the repressive and despotic Islamic state in Iran. We, the undersigned, unreservedly acknowledge and support the courage of all the women, men, and children of Iran in their fight for fundamental human rights and their clearly expressed desire to renew the nation’s social contract", said Zar Amir Ebrahimi.

After reading out loud the names of 173 artists, filmmakers and art students, persecuted by the Iranian regime, she added: "we demand their immediate and unconditional release, cancellation of unjust and group sentences, abolition of the death penalty, and investigation by international institutions of torture and murders committed in prisons.”