With Speech by Proxy, Iranian Filmmaker Condemns Trump's "Inhumane" Travel Ban

Boycotting the Academy Awards ceremony on Sunday evening, Iranian filmmaker Asghar Farhadi took the opportunity of his acceptance speech to condemn President Donald Trump’s “inhumane” travel ban and remind viewers that the power of film is that “they create empathy between us and others, an empathy that we need today more than ever.”

Farhadi, who directed the film “The Salesman,” had appointed two prominent Iranian-American space explorers to accept the award for Best Foreign Language film on his behalf—former NASA scientist Firouz Naderi, who was the project manager for the Mars exploration, and Anousheh Ansari, “the first self-funded woman in the world to have gone into space,” according to the Guardian.

“I’m sorry I’m not with you tonight,” Ansari said on Farhadi’s behalf. “My absence is out of respect for the people in my country and those of the other six nations who have been disrespected by the inhumane law that bans entry of immigrants to the U.S..”

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“Dividing the world into the ‘Us’ and ‘Our Enemy’ categories creates fear,” the speech continued, “deceitful justification for aggression and war. These rules prevent democracy and human rights in countries that have themselves been victims of aggression.”

“Filmmakers,” Ansari read, “can turn their cameras to capture shared human qualities and break stereotypes of various nationalities and religions. They create empathy between us and others, an empathy that we need today more than ever.”

Watch the speech below:

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