A famous Iranian film director whose films are banned in his native country has fled Iran after he was sentenced to eight years in prison and flogging by the despotic Iranian regime.

Mohammad Rasoulof, the director of “The Twilight,” “Iron Island,” “Goodbye, Manuscripts Don’t Burn,” “A Man of Integrity,” and the Golden Bear-winning “There Is No Evil,” posted a video of a mountainous area and said he had permanently left Iran, as Yashar Ali reported.

“If you think you control the borders of Iran, you are dreaming,” Rasoulof wrote. “If the geographical Iran suffers under your religious despotism, the cultural Iran lives in the collective mind of millions of Iranians who were forced to leave Iran due to your oppression and brutality, and no power can impose its will on it. From today, I reside in cultural Iran, a boundless land built by millions of Iranians with an ancient history and culture in every corner of the world. And they eagerly await to bury you and your regime of darkness in the depths of history. Then, like a phoenix, a new life will begin from that soil.”

On Monday, Rasoulof released a statement through Variety, saying: “I arrived in Europe a few days ago after a long and complicated journey … I didn’t have much time to make a decision. I had to choose between prison and leaving Iran. With a heavy heart, I chose exile. The Islamic Republic confiscated my passport in September 2017. Therefore, I had to leave Iran secretly.”

“Death sentences are being executed as the Islamic Republic has targeted the lives of protesters and civil rights activists,” he continued. “It’s hard to believe, but right now as I’m writing this, the young rapper, Toomaj Salehi, is held in prison and has been sentenced to death. The scope and intensity of repression has reached a point of brutality where people expect news of another heinous government crime every day. The criminal machine of the Islamic Republic is continuously and systematically violating human rights.”

“Rasoulof’s latest film, ‘The Seed of the Sacred Fig Tree,’ is set to premiere at the Cannes Film Festival next week. He had been pressured by Islamic Republic authorities to withdraw the film,” Ali reported.

Jean-Christophe Simon, CEO of Films Boutique and Parallel45, distributors of the film, said on Monday, “We are very happy and much relieved that Mohammad has safely arrived in Europe after a dangerous journey. We hope he will be able to attend the Cannes premiere.”