Oscar-nominated film’s director can’t attend amid Trump immigration ban, group’s leader says
The director of an Oscar-nominated film can’t attend next month’s Academy Awards after President Trump banned entry to the U.S. from seven Muslim majority nations for 90 days, according to the leader of an Iranian-American group in Washington.
Trita Parsi, president of the National Iranian American Council, said on Twitter early Saturday that Iranian director Asghar Farhadi “won’t be let into” the U.S. to attend the Feb. 26 ceremony.
The ban also appeared to have an effect on American companies. Late Friday, Google CEO Sundar Pichai said in an internal email that at least 187 Google employees were affected by the ban, according to The Wall Street Journal.
“We’re upset about the impact of this order and any proposals that could impose restrictions on Googlers and their families, or that could create barriers to bringing great talent to the US,” Pichai said, according to the newspaper. “It’s painful to see the personal cost of this executive order on our colleagues.”
Farhadi’s “The Salesman” was nominated for best foreign film. His much-admired “A Separation” won the category in 2012. “The Salesman” is a psychological thriller about a young couple in Tehran involved in a production of Arthur Miller’s “Death of a Salesman.” They move into a new apartment, where a violent act connected to a former tenant changes their lives.
Before Mr. Trump enacted the ban late Friday, Iranian actress Taraneh Alidoosti, who stars in “The Salesman,” said she would boycott the Academy Awards to protest Mr. Trump’s immigration policies.
“Trump’s visa ban for Iranians is racist,” she posted on Twitter Thursday amid reports about the ban.
The order Friday immediately suspended a program that last year resettled in the U.S. roughly 85,000 people displaced by war, political oppression, hunger and religious prejudice. Mr. Trump indefinitely blocked those fleeing Syria, where a civil war has raged, and imposed a 90-day ban on entry to the U.S. from seven Muslim majority nations.
“We want to ensure that we are not admitting…
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