Iranian Film on Holy Prophet Muhammad Set for Premiere

A multimillion-dollar biopic about the childhood of the prophet Muhammad is set to premiere on Sunday.

Tehran’s Fajr international film festival, which coincides with the anniversary of the 1979 Islamic revolution, is scheduled to show the country’s own version of how Islam’s most revered figure lived. To protect the prophet’s dignity, the film will be shown out of competition.

Iran has been a vocal critic of the prophet’s portrayal and expressed trong condemnation of the Charlie Hebdo cover cartoon in the aftermath of the deadly attacks in Paris.

The film, to be released as Muhammad, Messenger of God” in the festival’s opening ceremony, is made by Majid Majidi, a leading Iranian director who has worked for more than five years to produce what is only the second big-budget feature made about the prophet. The first was Moustapha Akkad’s 1976 The Message, starring Anthony Quinn, which sparked controversy despite not showing the prophet on screen to avoid hurting Muslim sensitivities.

Majidi has had his own doubts about Akkad’s biopic, which he said failed to do justice to Muhammad’s life by showing “only Jihad and war” and also because “the image of Islam in that film is the image of a sword”.

Majidi’s film, which is the first part of an ambitious trilogy about the prophet’s life, tells the story of Muhammad from his birth to the age of 12, ending with his first visit to Sham (Syria) where Bahira, a Christian monk, is believed to have predicted he would one day become a prophet.

Iran is bracing for a large international release in March, at least in the English- and Arabic-speaking worlds.

Muhammad’s face will not be shown on screen and the Italian cinematographer Vittorio Storaro, the three-time Oscar-winner for masterpiecesfilms such as Bernardo Bertolucci’s Last Tango in Paris and Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now, has worked on various combinations of light and darkness to make religious depictions in the film possible.

Majidi held a press conference this month in which he tried to assuage fears of a backlash, saying he had consulted both Shia and Sunni scholars from across the Muslim world before making the film.

“We chose a period of his life about which there is no difference between different Shia and Sunni scholars and groups,” he said. “We made this film with the view of bringing unity [to] the Muslim world.”

Majidi said his goal was to present the right image of Islam to the world. “The world’s perception of Islam today does not match with the beauties of Islam.”

Majidi Said: “While there are 250 films on Jesus Christ, 120 films on Moses, 80 about the other prophets and 40 films on Buddha, there is only The Message on the life of prophet Muhammad. Unfortunately, we fail to introduce our prophet to the western world. In this case enemies will remain enemies.”