Tehran, Iran: Renowned Iranian filmmaker Dariush Mehrjui and his wife were stabbed to death on Saturday at their home in Tehran.
Mehrjui and Vahideh Mohammadifar suffered ‘multiple stab wounds to the neck’, a provincial chief justice said, news agency AFP reported.
The 83-year-old filmmaker, known for his great art since his first film in 1967, "Diamond 33", was part of Iran’s new wave cinema beginning with his 1969 film "The Cow".
Born in 1939 in Tehran and studied philosophy in the US, Mehrjui started a literary magazine in Iran after his return.
The chief justice of Alborz province, Hossein Fazeli-Harikandi, said the filmmaker sent out an invite to his daughter Mona at about 9:00 pm for a dinner at their home in Karaj, west of Tehran.
Arriving home an hour and half later, Mona reportedly found her parents dead with wounds to their necks.
Police found no ‘signs of forced entry’ nor any ‘damage’ to the doors of their home.
Police, according to ISNA news agency, identified four suspects and two have been arrested after "traces have been found" at the scene.
The film-maker's wife earlier told a newspaper interview, published on Sunday, that she had been ‘threatened and that their home had been burgled.’
Iran’s minister of culture Mohammad-Mehdi Esmaili said Dariush Mehrjui was "the creator of eternal works".
Some of his noted movies before he left to France following the 1979 Islamic revolution include “Mr Gullible" (1970), and "The Cycle" (1977).
He lived in France between 1980 and 1985 and filmed a documentary "Journey to the Land of Rimbaud" (1983).
"The Tenants" (1987), which came out after his return to Iran, was a huge success at the box office.
His other acclaimed works include "Hamoun" in 1990, Sara" (1993), "Pari" (1995) and "Leila" (1997).
Alongside cinema, he was noted for his translation of works by French playwright Eugene Ionesco and the German Marxist philosopher Herbert Marcuse into Persian, according to the report.