The Blindfold
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Mostafa AziziWriterPendulum, Passenger
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Project Title (Original Language):روزگار شیرین
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Project Type:Screenplay
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Number of Pages:90
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Country of Origin:Iran, Islamic Republic of
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Language:Persian
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First-time Screenwriter:No
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Student Project:No
Azizi was born in Arak. A graduate of theoretical economics from Tehran University, he started his professional life as a writer and editor of educational and scientific programs on the Iranian National Radio in 1986. In 1990, he moved to television and became the director of the Computer Animation Unit (CAU). In 1994, he left the IRIB as an employee to open up the "Kelk-e-Khial" as a private film-producing company.
In 2010, a collection of short stories he authored in the Persian language were published in Iran under the title of I am Raymond Carver. Carver, an American author of the 1960s, is said to be a major influence on his work. Since 2010, Azizi resides in Toronto, as the director of Alternate Dream Productions Inc.
Arrest
Azizi returned to Tehran to visit his relatives in January 2015. On February 1, he was arrested and reportedly charged with "insulting Iran's supreme leader," Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and also "spreading propaganda" against the Islamic establishment. The charges apparently stem from some of Azizi's social media posts, although it's not clear which.
On June 1, 2015, Branch 15 of the Islamic Revolutionary Court of Tehran sentenced Azizi to 8 years in prison. Abolqasem Salavati was the presiding judge of his court. As of June 29, Azizi is being kept in Section 8 of the Evin Prison waiting for the final decision of the court. He got released on April 9, 2016.
When I was arrested by the IRGC’s intelligence service and placed in solitary confinement without any tools, I began to walk in a small place that was 3.5 m x 1.5m and wrote a script in my mind. After the end of solitary confinement and transferred to the general prison where I was allowed to have pen and paper, I started writing the script and sent it outside of the prison. After I got released and came back to Canada, I made some changes to the original script and now I decided to make this film.