Last month, one day before the previous disappeared Iranian director, Jafar Panahi, was released from jail following a hunger strike, another Iranian artist and filmmaker, Daryush Shokof, went missing. The exiled director, who lives in Germany, was last seen in Cologne when he was planning to board a train to Paris on May 24, but nobody has seen or heard from him since. Last month he premiered two new films in Berlin, Iran Zendan and Hitler’s Grave, both of which were sharply critical of the current regime in Iran.
Shokof’s friend Kazem Moussavi told The Associated Press, “We fear that the Iranian regime is responsible for his disappearance.” Another friend, Javad Asadian, told AP: “He especially received these threatening phone calls after parts of his film ‘Iran Zendan’ were published on YouTube.” While we wait to hopefully hear that his cell phone just ran out of batteries and he forgot his charger at home, watch an amazing video message (after the jump) that he recorded a couple months ago to introduce these two most recent films. (ArtForum)