1 day ago
1
Acclaimed Iranian-French cartoonist and filmmaker Marjane Satrapi, a salient advocator for women's rights, has died astatine 56, the French presidency said Thursday (June 4, 2026).
“Her passing marks the nonaccomplishment of a starring fig of French civilization and an creator devoted to freedom, whose enactment carried a cosmopolitan connection and earned her immense planetary acclaim,” the French presidency said successful a statement.
President Emmanuel Macron and his woman Brigitte Macron “pay tribute to a singular creator who transformed an Iranian puerility into a cosmopolitan fable,” the connection said.
News broadcaster BFM TV and different French media reported Ms. Satrapi has “died of sadness” a small implicit a twelvemonth aft the decease of her husband, Swedish movie shaper and histrion Mattias Ripa, according to a connection from radical adjacent to the artist.
The French Academy of Fine Arts, of which she was a member, expressed its heavy sadness successful a societal media statement, paying tribute to “a passionate advocator for cinema and movie education” who earlier this twelvemonth created a instauration to assistance planetary students travel to Paris to survey film.
Ms. Satrapi is best-known for her monochrome autobiographical comic publication and movie “Persepolis,” a coming-of-age communicative acceptable against the Islamic Revolution successful her autochthonal Iran.
“Persepolis” won the Film Critics Grand Prix astatine the Cannes Festival successful 2007 and the César Award for Best Adapted Screenplay successful 2008, successful summation to being nominated for Best Animated Feature astatine the 2008 Oscars.
The film, which details her beingness successful Tehran arsenic the willful girl of intelligence Marxists, is simply a reminder that Iranians are conscionable similar everyone else, Satrapi told The Associated Press (AP) successful a 2007 interrogation successful Cannes.
“What we wanted to accidental is, if these radical scare you, look closer: They person parents, they person lovers, they person hope, they person stories," she said.
Iranian authorities astatine the clip protested the movie's inclusion astatine Cannes, sending a missive to the French Embassy successful Tehran.
Ms. Satrapi was calved connected November 22, 1969, successful Rasht, Iran, but her parents sent her to Vienna, Austria, successful 1983 to decorativeness her studies due to the fact that of the extremism successful their state pursuing the 1979 Revolution that brought Ayatollah Khomeini to power.
But Ms. Satrapi, who recovered Austria hostile and who desperately missed her parents, returned to Iran successful 1989 to be Tehran University, wherever she earned a grade successful ocular communications.
By the clip she graduated, Ms. Satrapi decided she yet was acceptable to permission Iran and judge the opportunities her parents had been truthful hopeless to springiness her a decennary before. In 1994 she moved to France. She studied successful Strasbourg and aboriginal moved to Paris.
Her graphic novels besides see “Broderies” (“Embroideries”) and “Poulet aux prunes” (“Chicken with plums”), which besides was adapted into a film. As a filmmaker, she has directed respective works including “La Bande des Jotas” (“The Gang of Jotas”) and “Radioactive” (“Madame Curie”), a biography astir the Polish physicist Marie Curie.
Ms. Satrapi successful 2023 coordinated the publication “Femme, vie, liberté” (“Woman, Life, Freedom”) unneurotic with a radical of artists and academics to exemplify the revolts that occurred successful Iran aft the decease of Mahsa Amini successful 2022 astatine the hands of the alleged “morality police.” The enactment denounces the repression and deficiency of quality rights that Iranian society, particularly women, suffers astatine the hands of the Iranian regime, the instauration said.
Ms. Satrapi was elected subordinate of the French Academy of Fine Arts successful 2024. She besides was offered France's highest award, the Legion of Honor, that aforesaid twelvemonth but declined it, arguing France was not doing capable to enactment Iranian radical warring for democracy.
“Supporting the women's gyration successful Iran cannot beryllium reduced to photos oregon speeches,” she wrote successful a January 2025 missive to French authorities. “When radical are warring for democracy, we should enactment them.” In 2024, Ms. Satrapi won the Princess of Asturias Foundation grant successful Spain for connection and humanities. The organisation said she was “an indispensable dependable successful the defence of quality rights and freedom.” The judges described her arsenic “a awesome of civic engagement led by women." Mr. Satrapi's hubby died successful April 2025 astatine 53. On her Instagram page, lone 1 connection was near successful a bid of posts: “Because I person mislaid the emotion of my life.”
