Iran has officially selected murky moral drama ‘Cause of Death: Unknown’ as its official submission for the Best International Feature Film category at the 98th Academy Awards due to be announced on March 2.
Directed by Ali Zarnegar, the 2023 film follows seven sojourners in the Lut Desert in southeastern Iran who face a moral dilemma after discovering a large sum of money on a deceased fellow traveler.
The story examines human ethics, survival and moral choices under pressure, and has drawn praise for its suspenseful narrative and minimalist storytelling.
The film’s path to recognition faced challenges. It was removed from the official selection of the 40th Fajr Film Festival in 2022 in Tehran, just days before the event.
Authorities pulled it from the state-run event for unclear reasons but allowed it to be screened elsewhere.
Zarnegar publicly criticized the decision, emphasizing that social cinema reflects society and lamenting the suppression of creative expression.
The movie won the Audience Award at the Iranian Film Festival in New York and received nominations for Best Film, Best Director, and Best Actor at the 2023 Shanghai International Film Festival where it also won Best Cinematography.
Iran has a history of submitting films to the Academy Awards, with internationally acclaimed works by Asghar Farhadi such as A Separation and The Salesman, which won Best Foreign Language Film in 2012 and 2017, respectively, and A Hero, which was nominated in 2022.
Before Farhadi’s success, 'Children of Heaven' by Majid Majidi became the first Iranian film to earn an Oscar nomination in 1999, though it lost to Roberto Benigni’s 'Life Is Beautiful'.
Iranian filmmakers Shirin Sohani and Hossein Malayemi won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short in March for their film In the Shadow of the Cypress at the 97th Oscars in Hollywood, dedicating the award to their fellow Iranians.
While Iranian cinema has global reputation for its exploration of social themes, independent filmmakers operate under a system of stringent censorship.
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.
“Several countries in the region are trying to play a positive role, not only Qatar,” Araghchi told reporters at the opening of the second Iran-Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO) conference.
“But for starting negotiations, the question is not the mediator. The important point is the will of the other side. Whenever they accept that a deal must be based on mutual interests, without threat and intimidation, the rest are details.”
Araghchi used his speech to warn against what he called unchecked unilateralism and said the world needed to strengthen multilateral alliances.
“Today, more than ever, the world is faced with reckless unilateralism. This worrying trend has made the international order more fragile and posed serious challenges to security,” he said.“Cooperation among developing countries in multilateral formats is no longer a choice but a necessity.”
He said Iran had been a “victim of America’s unjust unilateralism and Israel’s dangerous adventurism” but would continue to act as an active regional player through bodies such as ECO.
Tehran and other member states are drafting a 10-year vision for the group until 2035 to expand its role in regional development, he said.
Turning to regional politics, Araghchi said this week’s emergency Arab-Islamic summit in Doha had highlighted a consensus on Israel as the main security threat.
“What the Islamic Republic of Iran has been saying for years -- that the Zionist regime is the main threat to the region and its aggression has no end -- has now become an undeniable truth for everyone,” he said.
He added that Iran welcomed the regional convergence and called for “collective movement and unity among all countries in the region” to respond.
On Monday, Iran’s foreign ministry rejected references to a two-state solution for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the final communique of the Arab-Islamic emergency summit in Doha, saying the approach would not resolve the issue and accusing US policies of sustaining Israeli aggression.
On the South Caucasus, Araghchi said disputes such as the Zangezur corridor remained complex and should be settled by regional states.
“The United States has not contributed to lasting peace in the region,” he said. “Our recommendation is regional mechanisms, and the Islamic Republic has proposed the 3+3 format.”
Araghchi and President Masoud Pezeshkian are due to attend this month’s United Nations General Assembly, which the minister described as an important platform for “conveying the voice of the Iranian people to the international community.”
