Trump's ban will keep Iranian Oscar-nominated filmmaker from ceremony

AP photo: Markus Schreiber

Credit: Jennifer Brett

Credit: Jennifer Brett

AP photo: Markus Schreiber

http://players.brightcove.net/1345087319/rkw6LSiQ_default/index.html?videoId=5300542291001

Iranian director and screenwriter  Asghar Farhadi, whose film "The Salesman" earned a Golden Globes nomination and is now up for an Academy Award, will not be able to attend the Oscars due to the executive order President Donald Trump signed on Friday.

Farhadi, whose previous film "A Separation" earned both a Golden Globe and Oscar for best foreign language film, was named one of Time's 100 most influential people in 2012. 

Here is Farhadi's 2012 Oscar acceptance speech:

Trump's order bars all refugees from entering the United States for four months, and indefinitely halted any from Syria, saying the ban is needed to keep out "radical Islamic terrorists," the Associated Press reported. The order immediately suspended a program that last year resettled in the U.S. roughly 85,000 people displaced by war, political oppression, hunger and religious prejudice. Trump indefinitely blocked those fleeing Syria, where a civil war has raged, and imposed a 90-day ban on all immigration to the U.S. from seven Muslim majority nations, citing terrorism concerns.

Iran is one of the affected nations. Trita Parsi, head of the National Iranian American Council, confirmed Farhadi would not be able to attend the 2017 Oscars as a result.

"The Academy celebrates achievement in the art of filmmaking, which seeks to transcend borders and speak to audiences around the world, regardless of national, ethnic, or religious differences. As supporters of filmmakers—and the human rights of all people—around the globe, we find it extremely troubling that Asghar Farhadi, the director of the Oscar-winning film from Iran, 'A Separation,' along with the cast and crew of this year's Oscar-nominated film 'The Salesman,' could be barred from entering the country because of their religion or country of origin."

Here's the movie's trailer: