Asghar Farhadi, the brilliant writer/director of About Elly, The Past, and the Oscar- winning A Separation, will not be able to attend this year’s Academy Award ceremony, where his The Salesman is nominated for Best Foreign Film. It’s not because of a scheduling conflict; it’s because he is from Iran, and our president is an asshole.
The Salesman’s star Tarineh Alidoosti had already announced her intention to skip the ceremony in protest, based solely on early reports of the...