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We sat expectantly, together with the Minister of Culture, Ataollah Mohajemni, as the curtain rose on Iran's annual film awards ceremony which closes the Fajr Film Festival in Tehran. At the back of the stage, a man sat cross-legged under an ornamental arch. As the audience fell silent, he began to chant verses from the Koran - the moving way formal occasions begin in Iran and a tangible demonstration of the Islamist fusion of religion, society and culture.
For the first time in its 16 years, the festival held an international competition with an international jury headed by Abbas Kiarostami, the Iranian film-maker whose film Close-Up was released in Britain to great acclaim. Kiarostami read out a statement in which he made it clear that the jury felt it impossible to give awards to foreign films that could only be screened in Iran with major cuts (including all scenes of sexuality, violence and drug-taking)....