the public sphere. Early stance on pre-revolutionary icons Some pre-revolutionary filmmakers have accounts about celebrities who have been hurt by Mousavi's positions in his early years in office. Saeed Motalebi, an established writer and director in the pre-revolutionary era, has one of such accounts that refers to the 1982 film The Imperilled (Barzakhi-ha) which was written by him and had four pre-revolutionary male stars in the lead roles. It was directed by Iraj Ghaderi and, with its patriotic story about resisting foreign invasion, it was a chance for Fardin, Malek-Motiei, Ghaderi and Rad to renew their threatened careers as actors in the post-revolutionary atmosphere. The film was a hit and became the highest grossing Iranian film of all time in its short period of screening in theaters. But it was soon banned and consequently the four actors were banned from working. About how the film's success was turned into disaster Motalebi says: In one friday Mr. Mohsen Makhmalbaf gathered a couple of people and they started collecting signatures for a petition which was written on a scroll, stating that "We have made a revolution while these actors are transgressors." They did it right in front of that theater in the Revolution Square near the university of Tehran. They said "Look how theaters are crowded while friday events are deserted." That's how they stopped my film. Then a reporter who was queued to ask something about our film, went and told the then prime minister (Mir-Hossein Mousavi) "There is a film in theaters whose writer wants to convey that people who are fighting in the fronts are problematic persons." The prime minister replied "These are leftovers of junk intellectuals who will soon go to the dustbin of history." Malek-Motiei became jobless and turned his garage into a pastry shop. Ghaderi put some rice bags in his office and became a rice dealer. Fardin opened a pastry shop too and when I went to visit him, I used to wait outside as long as there were no customers so that he wouldn't feel ashamed when he saw me. These were all caused by those illogical efforts which I will never forgive. 1988 prison massacres On 12 December 2018 Amnesty International published an interview of the Austrian national public service ORF (broadcaster), on 13 December 1988, with Mir Hossein Mousavi. Mousavi was asked about the mass executions inside Iran's prison at the time