Speaking in Tokyo, Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof and Afghan-Iranian director Shahrbanoo Sadat said a standalone Oscar category for exiled filmmakers is unnecessary, as Cate Blanchett's Displacement Film Fund screened its first shorts in Japan.
Iranian filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof and Iranian-born Afghan director Shahrbanoo Sadat pushed back on the idea of a standalone Oscar category for exiled filmmakers, according to Variety's report from the Tokyo International Film Festival. The question followed the Academy's recent rule change that makes exiled filmmakers eligible for the Oscars. The discussion took place as Cate Blanchett's Displacement Film Fund gave its first five short films their Japan premiere. Sadat said she dislikes being labelled a "displaced filmmaker" and was unsure she would want to sit in such a category even if it came with an Oscar, while Rasoulof said specific categories can sometimes cause problems and that he would rather focus on closing the distance between filmmakers and audiences.
Clare Stewart, managing director of the International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR), whose Hubert Bals Fund manages the Displacement Film Fund, noted that Rasoulof's own film "The Seed of the Sacred Fig", nominated in the last Oscar cycle, was among the first to benefit from the change and represented Germany. She said she personally saw no need for a separate category. Blanchett, the fund's co-founder, said everyone on the panel welcomed the Academy's ruling because it acknowledges the real situation facing artists around the world, whose careers are often interrupted by war and conflict. She added that the first cohort's films have already had an Academy-qualifying screening in Los Angeles, with another planned in New York in mid-November.
The fund backs filmmakers who are themselves displaced or who have a track record of telling authentic stories about displacement, and it launched at IFFR in January 2025. Its first cohort comprises Rasoulof, Sadat, Mo Harawe, Hasan Kattan and Maryna Er Gorbach, and a second cohort is now making its films. Rasoulof's short "The Sense of Water" centres on a migrant's solitude and the struggle to learn a new language, while Sadat's "Super Afghan Gym" explores discomfort with one's own body. This account relies on Variety's reporting of the panel; the full text and scope of the Academy's rule change were not independently detailed here.
