Oscar-nominated co-writer of It Was Just an Accident released from Iranian prison

Mehdi Mahmoudian, the Oscar-nominated co-writer of It Was Just an Accident, has been released from an Iranian prison 17 days after his arrest, according to local media reports.

Mahmoudian was arrested in Tehran shortly after signing a statement condemning Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and the regime’s violent crackdown on demonstrators. On Tuesday, he was released from the Nowshahr prison, along with two other signatories of the statement, Vida Rabbani and Abdollah Momeni.

Mahmoudian is nominated for best original screenplay at the Academy Awards , along with Nader Saeivar, Shadmehr Rastin and the film’s director, Jafar Panahi. The film, a revenge drama inspired by Panahi’s own time in jail, is also nominated for best international feature as a submission from France.

“Mehdi Mahmoudian, Vida Rabbani, and Abdollah Momeni peacefully exercised their right to express their views, but the regime responded by accusing them of ‘insulting the supreme leader’ and ‘propaganda against the Islamic Republic’,” Panahi said in a statement on Tuesday.