One of Iran’s most important filmmakers, Dariush Mehrjui, was stabbed to death on Saturday evening alongside his wife at their home near Tehran, the judiciary said on Sunday.
The 83-year-old was indelibly associated with the Iranian new wave of cinema, having made “The Cow” in 1969, one of the movement’s first films.
“During the preliminary investigation, we found that Dariush Mehrjui and his wife, Vahideh Mohammadifar, were killed by multiple stab wounds to the neck,” said Hossein Fazeli-Harikandi, chief justice of Alborz province, near Tehran, according to Mizan online news agency.
Fazeli-Harikandi said the director’s daughter Mona Mehrjui found the bodies when she went to visit her father Saturday night at the home in a suburb about 30 kilometers (19 miles) west of the capital, Tehran.
The report said authorities were investigating and gave no speculation on a motive, though the wife had complained about a knife threat on social media in recent weeks.
