Iranian filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof and Iranian-born Afghan director Shahrbanoo Sadat voiced strong opposition to the concept of a separate Oscar category for exiled filmmakers during a panel at the Tokyo International Film Festival. Their comments coincided with the Japanese premiere of the first five short films supported by Cate Blanchett's Displacement Film Fund. The debate arose following the Academy's recent rule change, which now permits exiled filmmakers to be eligible for Oscars without needing a specific category, a move that drew top Academy leadership to the festival.
Sadat, whose fund-backed short is titled "Super Afghan Gym," expressed discomfort with being labeled as a "displaced filmmaker." She described the idea of such a label as a joke and stated she would not want to be placed in a "displaced" category even if it resulted in winning an Oscar. Rasoulof, who directed the fund's film "The Sense of Water," emphasized his desire to focus his energy on filmmaking rather than categorization. He suggested that creating specific categories could cause issues and expressed a preference for efforts that close distances between people rather than separating them.
Clare Stewart, managing director of the International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR), noted that Rasoulof's film "The Seed of the Sacred Fig" was already one of the first to benefit from the Academy's rule change, representing Germany in the last cycle. Stewart questioned what dialogue a separate category would create and argued there is no need for it, suggesting the current approach opens broader thinking about the position of refugee filmmakers in society. Blanchett, co-founder of the fund, welcomed the Academy's ruling as a profound acknowledgment of the real situations facing artists displaced by wars and conflicts.
The Displacement Film Fund supports filmmakers who are themselves displaced or have a track record of telling authentic stories about displacement. The initiative took shape at the UNHCR's Global Refugee Forum in December 2023, where Blanchett met Yanai Koji of Fast Retailing. The fund launched at IFFR in January 2025, managed by the Hubert Bals Fund, with founding partners including Mastermind, Uniqlo, the Tamer Family Foundation, the Amahoro Coalition, and Droom en Daad. The SP Lohia Foundation joined as a main partner this year.
The first cohort of filmmakers, unveiled at Cannes in 2025, includes Rasoulof, Sadat, Mo Harawe, Hasan Kattan, and Maryna Er Gorbach. Their films have screened in Rotterdam, London, El Gouna, São Paulo, and Los Angeles, with a New York screening scheduled for mid-November. Blanchett noted that while these screenings serve Academy qualification purposes, the primary goal is to allow American audiences to see these extraordinary films. She emphasized that filmmakers were given full freedom over their subjects and did not have to address displacement directly.
Rasoulof described "The Sense of Water" as a film centering on a migrant's solitude and the struggle to learn a new language, reflecting his own experience of fleeing his hometown three years ago. Sadat, who was born in Iran to parents who fled the Soviet-Afghan War and later evacuated to France and Germany, created "Super Afghan Gym" to explore feelings of discomfort in one's body as both a first and last home. Her film, which she realized was being read as a comedy after its Rotterdam premiere, follows her experience editing "No Good Men," a romantic comedy that opened the Berlin Film Festival.
Japanese actor Koji Yakusho, a collaborator on Uniqlo's Peace for All charity project, made a surprise appearance at the post-screening talk. He described Rasoulof's film as a quiet story about love and hardship, while noting that Sadat's gym-set film brought a smile to his face. The event concluded with Blanchett asking Yakusho when they might work together.
Sources: Variety.