Iranian Director Dariush Mehrjui Found Dead At Home With His Wife

Dariush Mehrjui, one of Iran's most prominent filmmakers, was found dead on Saturday evening.

New Delhi: The bodies of Iranian film director Dariush Mehrjui, 83, and his wife Vahideh Mohammadifar, 69, were discovered at their Tehran home on Saturday evening. According to Iranian news reports, their killer stabbed them to death. In addition, their throats were slashed many times with knives. According to Hossein Fazeli, a judicial official, the director's daughter, Mona Mehrjui, discovered the deaths when she went to see her father at the residence in a neighbourhood some 30 kilometres (19 miles) west of the capital, Tehran, on Saturday night, as reported by the official IRNA news agency.

Later that day, officers reported that they found "no signs of forced entry can be seen at the crime scene" and that "no damage has been done to the doors" of the house. But they claimed to have uncovered "traces" at the site that "related to the murderer."

Four people have been recognised as having ties to the case, and two of them have been detained, according to the police headquarters, which was quoted by Iran's ISNA news agency.

Dariush Mehrjui was born on December 8, 1939, in Tehran. He went on to study philosophy in the United States.

Dariush Mehrjui was praised by Iran's minister of culture Mohammad-Mehdi Esmaili, who called him "one of the pioneers of Iranian cinema" and "the creator of eternal works" in a statement.

Dariush co-founded the realism-focused Iranian cinema new wave of the early 1970s. At the 2015 International Film Festival of Kerala, he was presented with the "Lifetime Achievement Award." He won a Silver Hugo at the Chicago International Film Festival in 1998 and a Golden Seashell at the San Sebastián International Film Festival in 1993, among other accolades.

The director spent the years 1980-1985 in France, where he produced ‘Journey to the Land of Rimbaud’. When he got back to Iran, his film ‘The Tenants’ was a huge hit.

In 1990, he directed the dark comedy ‘Hamoun’ which depicted a day in the life of a scholar struggling with the stress of a divorce and his own philosophical doubts as Sony and Toshiba swept Iran.

Mehrjui also wrote about women's experiences in the 1990s with ‘Sara,’ ‘Pari,’ and ‘Leila’.