Exiled Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof pointed to Jafar Panahi’s latest prison sentence as proof that Iranian cinema remains under repression, as he and Japan-based director O Mipo received the Tokyo International Film Festival’s Kurosawa Akira Award.

“Of course, Iranian cinema continues to face repression, and my friends and colleagues remain under enormous pressure,” Rasoulof said in Persian at a festival press conference. “Just a few days ago, another sentence was handed down against Jafar Panahi, who won the Palme d’Or at Cannes last year: five more years in prison and the confiscation of his property.”

He said many Iranian filmmakers were determined to take on those in power by telling their stories directly instead of using metaphor to evade repression.

At the evening ceremony, where each director received a trophy and a cash prize of JPY1 million ($6,400), Rasoulof closed his acceptance speech by wishing for peace soon, not only in Iran but around the world.

“It is not at all easy, on a night like this and in times like these, when I cannot find a balance between my joy and my deep sorrow over the situation in Iran,” he said. “A people who face daily executions on one side and, on the other, missile attacks and bombs, living a violent and very, very difficult life.”

Rasoulof stopped relying on metaphor himself after 2010, when he was arrested while making a film and sentenced to five years. Alone in a cell, he asked himself why anyone should go to prison for making a film. He began to see allegory, a technique classical Persian poets used to shield themselves, as a form of self-protection.

“I thought I was using metaphor to run away from the regime, but I thought I wouldn’t do it anymore. I don’t need to run away anymore, so then I decided to tell things directly,” Rasoulof said.

The selection committee was chaired by Yamada Yoji and also included director Lee Sang-il, cinematographer Ashizawa Akiko and festival programming director Ichiyama Shozo. Its citation, read out by Ichiyama, noted Rasoulof’s films on human rights repression under the state. It highlighted the international acclaim for “There Is No Evil” and “The Seed of the Sacred Fig,” which take the humanist view that even those enforcing oppression are ordinary citizens, and his refusal to bow to pressure.

Rasoulof grew up watching “Red Beard” on Iranian state television, more than 10 times by his own count. The Kurosawa film closest to him now, though, is “Dersu Uzala.”

“Whenever I feel hopeless, or whenever I feel depressed, even now, I see ‘Dersu Uzala’ so that I can go back to my own life and I can find some hope,” he said.

The committee praised O for looking at people on society’s margins without passing moral judgment, starting with her 2006 debut “The Sakai’s Happiness.” It highlighted her unforced direction of children in “Being Good,” “Living in Two Worlds” and “How Dare You.”

O had her first son in 2015 and expected to return to work quickly. She found that she could not make films and raise a child at the same time, and after her second son was born in 2020 she assumed her career was over. That changed when she watched the 2023 Japan Academy Film Prize ceremony on television. Accepting the best actress award, Ando Sakura said plainly that filmmaking and child-rearing could not be done together.

“I was struck by thunder when I heard that, and at the same time I was relieved,” O said.

The remark convinced her she could pick up her career again, and she went on to make her first feature in nine years. O said she wants the industry to let crews put their own lives first, whether that means children, caring for sick relatives or anything else. When she joined the business 28 or 29 years ago, she said, senior crew members warned her she would not be at her parents’ deathbeds.

For “How Dare You,” O held weekend workshops with large groups of children instead of formal auditions. She cast mostly first-time actors over trained child performers. Viewers often ask whether she shot with a hidden camera or worked without a script. She said the reverse is true: the film had a full screenplay, written with Takada Ryo, and went through extensive rehearsals before shooting. The children’s own phrasing reshaped the dialogue along the way.

In her acceptance speech, O said that pianist and composer Tanaka Takuto, who had scored her films for years, died suddenly two days before she learned of the award. She said she had trusted his music so completely that she could not imagine making films without it, and the loss left her feeling she had lost an arm.

“Then I heard about the award, and I felt probably Mr. Tanaka Takuto was saying continue making films,” O said.

O first saw a Kurosawa film, “Rashomon,” as a film student. After graduating, she worked as a script supervisor in the office of the late Obayashi Nobuhiko, whose making-of documentary on “Dreams” runs longer than the film itself. She said she shares Kurosawa’s conviction that cinema has the beauty and power to bring peace to the world.

Obayashi told her that Kurosawa, then 80, had urged him at 50 to keep making films that would still be loved 400 years later. O, who is 49, said the award felt like a push from Kurosawa, Obayashi and the other filmmakers who had backed her.

She closed her speech by thanking her two sons, at home that night, and her husband, who was looking after them.