A number of Iranian film-makers whose movies have dealt...

A number of Iranian film-makers whose movies have dealt with Iran's revolution and the status of its women, have had their works censored or banned. However, film-maker Tahmineh Milani Milani was actually arrested in August and later released on bail.
Iranian President Mohammad Khatami personally defended her.
The Revolutionary Council's move is surprising since her film had been cleared by the censors and the ministry of culture and had been running in Iranian theatres for a month when Milani was arrested.
"The Hidden Half" focuses on a dutiful wife who reveals her turbulent political past to her husband, a judge who is deciding the fate of a similar woman facing execution.
The wife's naive involvement, as a student, with a left-wing group opposing the Shah puts her on the wrong side of the fence after the Islamic revolution in 1979.
The charges have not been dropped, and Milani is awaiting trial. "I was accused of doing things against national security and collaborating with anti-revolutionary groups outside Iran. It is one of the highest accusations they can make, and the sentence is the death penalty," Milani told the press. She said she has become a pawn in the ongoing struggle between the liberalising policies of President Khatami and powerful fundamentalist forces.
Currently there is a worldwide campaign to support Milani by a Chicago-based film company called Facets Multimedia, and FIPRESCI, the international film critics' federation. Milani has the support of Iranian film-makers such as Abbas Kiarostami and Mohsen Makhmalbaf, as well as others, including Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, Oliver Stone, Steven Soderbergh, Ang Lee, Sean Penn and Mike Leigh.