Iranian authorities have dismissed claims of plagiarism against acclaimed director Asghar Farhadi regarding his 2021 film, A Hero. The allegations were made by a former student of Farhadi, who accused him of stealing the premise for the movie from a documentary she had created for his class.
A group of three professors specializing in copyright law, along with four official art experts from Tehran University, conducted a thorough review of the case. They concluded that the similarities between the student's documentary and Farhadi's film were based on widely reported news events and therefore did not constitute copyright infringement.
The student, Azadeh Masihzadeh, claimed that Farhadi had plagiarized her story of an inmate in debtors' prison who finds a bag of gold coins while on leave. However, the expert panel found that the events depicted in the documentary were based on public information available in newspapers, social media, and television.
The panel further noted that the fictional film, A Hero, diverged significantly from the documentary and the actual events it was based on. They emphasized that the mere retelling of publicly available news does not grant ownership rights to an individual.
Ultimately, the experts cleared Farhadi of all blame, stating that the similarities between the two works were a result of the common source of reality and media coverage, as well as Farhadi's teaching style. The verdict established that no copyright infringement had occurred in the making of A Hero.
Farhadi, a two-time Oscar winner known for films like A Separation and The Salesman, has consistently denied the plagiarism allegations. The expert panel's ruling now officially exonerates him of any wrongdoing in relation to A Hero.
