Top actress vows not to act again in Iran after protest crackdown

A leading Iranian actress who has acted in dozens of films over a two-decade career says she will never perform in the country again after a deadly crackdown on protests.

Elnaz Shakerdoust said in a post on Instagram late Monday that she believed tens of thousands of people had been killed in the crackdown and that Iran’s soil now “smelled of blood”.

Her statement coincided with the start of Iran’s main annual film festival the Fajr Film Festival in Tehran which Shakerdoust said she would be boycotting.

“I am in mourning for my dear ones; what festival, what celebration can there be? I will participate in no celebration, and I will never again play any role on this soil that smells of blood,” she posted.

Shakerdoust said in the post that 40,000 people had been killed in the crackdown on anti-government protests.

The US-based HRANA rights group has said it has verified 6,854 deaths mostly of protesters but it and other groups have warned the actual toll risks being far higher.

The actress implied in her post that she had been told by Fajr festival organisers that she could be in line for one of its top Simorgh awards for one of her performances.

But she said: “My soul has been unable to bear this horrific, criminal, historic tragedy.”

The Fajr Film Festival in the past attracted major international Iranian and international filmmakers but its scale has dwindled as Iran became even more isolated in recent years.

Nevertheless, the 2026 edition will still going ahead this month despite the protests.

Shakerdoust, 41, has been active for over two decades and starred in more than 50 films, winning numerous awards at national film festivals.

In 2021, she denounced on Instagram the murder of a young man who was killed by family members in southwestern Iran because of his homosexuality.

Her post sparked outrage among conservatives and was subsequently removed by order of the judiciary.

Cinema in Iran, whose origins go well back into the imperial era but continued in the Islamic republic, is a contentious political battleground.

Those arrested in the crackdown include screenwriter Mehdi Mahmoudian, co-writer on Jafar Panahi’s film “It was Just an Accident”, which was nominated as best international picture at this year’s Oscars and won the Palme d’Or at the 2025 Cannes festival.

AFP

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