Even before Saeed Roustayee’s “Woman and Child” premieres at the upcoming Cannes Film Festival, the Iranian director’s new work is sparking heated controversy that reflects deep soul searching within the turbulent country’s filmmaking community.

The upswell of feelings and opinions that “Woman and Child” is already eliciting, sight unseen, has prompted fellow Iranian helmer Mohammad Rasoulof, who escaped from Iran to Europe in May 2024 after receiving a jail sentence from the country’s authorities for making “The Seed of the Sacred Fig,” to come out strongly in Roustayee’s defense. Rasoulof intervened after a group of filmmakers who oppose the Iranian regime claimed that Cannes is bowing to Iran’s repressive authorities by selecting “Woman and Child,” which they say was produced with government permission and should therefore be considered “a propaganda film,” as the Iranian Independent Filmmakers Association (Iifma) has put it in an Instagram post.