Oscar winner: I love Iran, but I am filming abroad

Asghar Farhadi, the director who won Iran’s first-ever Oscar for his movie “A Separation”, declared on Saturday he would never leave his homeland despite his newfound global fame -- but his next film was being made abroad. “I love my country and I will not change it for anywhere in the world,” the 40-year-old filmmaker was quoted as saying by the official IRNA news agency as he arrived in Tehran. “I will never emigrate from Iran,” he said. Farhadi added, however: “I am at the point of filming a movie outside of the country.” The director picked up the golden statuette for best foreign language film at the U.S. Academy Awards last month for his taut drama, “A Separation” -- the first time the Islamic republic ever won an Oscar. Farhadi’s triumph resonated even more strongly because he made the movie under the restrictions imposed by Iranian authorities, who briefly placed a ban on “A Separation” as it was being filmed. His next movie is being made in France, according to the trade publication Screen Daily. It is said to center on a love story between a young Iranian woman and a North African man, and will begin filming within weeks.