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Abdelhak Senna/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images The Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami, at a film festival in Morocco in December.

Abbas Kiarostami, a celebrated Iranian filmmaker who has won numerous international awards for films like “ Close-Up” and “ Through The Olive Trees,” published an open letter in a Tehran newspaper on Tuesday calling for the release of Jafar Panahi and Mahmoud Rasoulof, two directors recently detained by the authorities.

Mr. Kiaorstami sent the original, Persian-language text of his letter and an English translation to The Lede from Iran through a mutual friend, Hooman Majd, the author of “The Ayatollah Begs to Differ.” The complete text of the translation is below. The original text is available for download.

Mr. Panahi, who has directed two films scripted by Mr. Kiarostami, “The White Balloon,” and “ Crimson Gold,” was arrested last week, as my colleague Nazila Fathi reported.

In an interview uploaded to YouTube, he discussed the event that inspired his 2006 film “ Offside,” which is about a group of Iranian women who want to be allowed to watch a soccer match.

According to The International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran, a source close to him said: “Over the past years, Ministry of Intelligence authorities have summoned Jafar Panahi to different investigation offices of the Ministry in different locations and have questioned him. In one of these meetings he was told, ‘Just because you are a famous filmmaker, you mustn’t think that we are unable to arrest you. We can arrest you whenever we decide.’”

Here is the complete text of Mr. Kiarostami’s open letter, written in response to that arrest.

I don’t quite know to whom I am addressing this letter, but I do know why I’m writing it and I believe that under the circumstances it is both critical and inevitable because two Iranian filmmakers, both of whom are vital to the Iranian wave of independent cinema, have been incarcerated.

As a filmmaker of the same independent cinema, it has been years since I lost hope of ever screening my films in my country. By making my own low-budget and personal films, it has also been years since I lost all hope of receiving any kind of aid or assistance from the Ministry of Guidance and Islamic culture, the custodian of Iranian cinema.

In order to make a living, I have turned to photography and use that income to make short and low-budget films. I don’t even object to their illegal reproduction and distribution because that is my only means of communicating with my own people. For years now I have not even objected to this lack of attention from the ministry and cinema‫tic authorities‬.

Even if we choose to disregard the fact that for years now, the cinematic administrators of the country, who constitute the main cultural body of the government, have differentiated between their own filmmakers (insiders) and independent filmmakers (outsiders), I am still of the opinion that they are oblivious of Iranian independent cinema. Filmmaking is not a crime. It is our sole means of making a living and thus not a choice, but a vital necessity.

I have found my own solutions to the problem. Independent of the conventional and customary support granted to the cinematic community at large, I make my own short and independent films with hopes of gaining some credit for the people I love and a name for the country I come from. Sometimes the necessity to work calls for the making of films beyond the borders of my country, which is ultimately not out of personal choice or taste.

However, others, like Jafar Panahi, have for years tried to summon official government support, exploring the same frustrating path, only to be confronted with the same closed doors. He too has for years held hopes of obtaining public screenings for his films and receiving official aid and assistance from the relevant governmental bodies. He still believes that based on the merits of his films and the acclaim they have brought the country, he can seek legal solutions to the problem. The Ministry of Guidance and Islamic culture is directly responsible for what is happening to Jafar Panahi and his like. Any wrongdoing on his part, if there is any at all, is a direct result of the mismanagement of officials at the cinematic department of the Ministry of Guidance and it’s inadequate policies which in no way leave any choice for the filmmaker other than to resort to means that jeopardize his situation as a filmmaker. He too makes a living through cinema.

For him too, filmmaking is a vital necessity. He needs to make himself heard and has the right to expect cinematic officials to facilitate the process, rather than become the major obstacles themselves. Perhaps the officials at the ministry can not at present be of help in solving Jafar Panahi’s dilemma, but they need to know that they are and have been responsible all these years, for the dreadful consequences and unpleasant and anti-cultural reflections of such policies in the world media.

I may not be an advocate of Jafar Panahi’s radical and sensational methods but I do know that the cause for his plight is not a result of choice but an inevitable [compulsion].

He is paying for the conduct of officials who have for years closed all doors on him, leaving open small passages and dead end paths.

Jafar Panahi’s problem will eventually be solved but there are numerous young people who have chosen the art of cinema as their means of expression and careers.

This is where the duty of the government and the Ministry of Guidance and Islamic Culture, as the government’s main cultural body, becomes even more critical, for they face a large group of Iranian youth who aim to work independently and away from complicated official procedures and existing prejudices.

Jafar Panahi and Mahmoud Rasoulof are two filmmakers of the Iranian independent cinema, a cinema that for the past quarter of a century has served as an essential cultural element in expanding the name of this country across the globe. They belong to an expanded world culture, and are a part of international cinematic culture. I wish for their immediate release from prison knowing that the impossible is possible. My heartfelt wish is that artists no longer be imprisoned in this country because of their art and that the independent and young Iranian cinema no longer faces obstacles, lack of support, attention and prejudice.

This is your responsibility and the ultimate definition of your existence.

Abbas Kiarostami / 1388.12.18 [March 9, 2010] / Tehran

Even though his films have been banned in Iran for years, Mr. Kiarostami, who recently made his first film abroad, dismissed the idea of leaving Iran permanently in an interview with The National, an Abu Dhabi newspaper, in October. “I don’t believe in leaving my home,” he told the newspaper. “The place where I sleep well at night is my home. We make films in order to live. No matter under whatever conditions, my home, at the end of a dead end, is where I’ve been living, and there’s nothing that’s persuaded me yet to leave it.”

He added that in the face of difficulties, such as those confronting Iran’s filmmakers today, “It just depends on what your reaction is in the face of things that don’t appeal to you. You can find shelter in alcohol and opium. You might get depressed. Or you can think, since I’m not going to do those things, what can I do?”

In the same interview, Mr. Kiarostami was asked to comment on the decision of another Iranian filmmaker, Bahman Ghobadi, to leave Iran. “Based on what I’ve witnessed of Iranians leaving Iran, I haven’t seen a very positive outcome,” he replied. “I have no criticism of anybody else that should choose to leave their home…. If Bahman Ghobadi believes that he will make films under better conditions outside of Iran, I only congratulate and praise him. So long as he does make them.”

As my colleague Michael Slackman reported in January, Mr. Ghobadi took that as an attack of some sort and wrote a furious open letter denouncing Mr. Kiarostami for not taking a political stand against Iran’s government. In an email message to The Lede, Mr. Kiarostami said that his remarks about Mr. Ghobadi were not in any way an attack on him.