Iran slams screening of Persepolis at Cannes Film Festival

Cannes - An animated movie about a woman growing up in revolutionary Iran screened Wednesday in competition for the Cannes Film Festival's coveted Palme d'Or against the backdrop of protests by Tehran to the French government. France rejected Iran's protests saying there was "nothing political" in selecting the movie Persepolis for the festival programme. Those responsible for the festival had chosen the movie and they were obviously not under the French government's authority, a spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Jean Baptiste Mattei said in Paris.

Asked by reporters Tuesday in Cannes why she would not give interviews to Iranian journalists, French-Iranian director Marjane Satrapi said media reports of the letter sent to the cultural attache at the French embassy in Iran had been overblown "and more violent than the (Iranian) reaction itself," adding, "It's not an affair of state."

"I don't want to nourish this dispute because it has been blown up out of all proportions. If people want to talk to me only about the film, I will."

Set in Tehran 1978 and co-directed by Vincent Paronnaud, the movie tells the story of nine-year-old Marjane as she grows up amid events leading to the downfall of the Shah's regime and the new government's "social guardians" who control how people dress and conduct themselves.

Clever and fearless, Marjane loves punk, ABBA and Iron Maiden. But parents voiced by French actors Catherine Deneuve and Simon Abkarian, become anxious that she is perhaps too outspoken for her own good.

The harsh reality of the war between Iran and Iraq quickly catches up with the family and her parents decide to send her to Vienna. The city is the venue of her coming of age where she falls in love and enjoys her new-found freedom. But she also pines for home and experiences life on the margins of a new society.