TORONTO, Sept 12, (Agencies): Sean Stone, son of Oliver, seems like a chip off the old block.
Fresh off the plane from Tehran, the famous filmmaker’s son defended Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in an interview this weekend and supported Iran’s right to a nuclear program as a defense against threats from Israel. The 26-year-old documentary filmmaker met exclusively with TheWrap at the Toronto Film Festival, offering some unconventional views.
Criticizing the Iranian government is “like someone coming to your house and saying the father shouldn’t hit the kids,’’ he said. “Who are we to tell them how to rule their country?’’
“Iran is ruled by law,’’ he said. “People don’t like Ahmadinejad, but that doesn’t warrant a war or an uprising.’’
Sean’s father, Oliver Stone, has often been a controversial political iconoclast, befriending Cuban leader Fidel Castro and anti-American Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez.
Stone spent a week on Tehran launching a new co-production company to make movies based in Iranian history and culture.
Meanwhile, in Tehran on Sunday, Ahmadinejad gave a speech marking the anniversary of 9/11 by repeating the conspiracy theory that the attacks were orchestrated by the US as a pretext for war.
But Stone said that Ahmadinejad has often been misunderstood.

Mistranslation
“He did come to America to extend a hand. And there’s a lot of mistranslation, literally. I’ve seen it. Ahmadinejad will say something and it will be mistranslated,’’ he said. “A lot of mistranslation. It’s an aggressive attitude on both parts, mostly on the American side.’’
Stone, who studied history at Princeton, said that Iran should certainly have the right to a nuclear program.
“Israel has nuclear weapons, Iran has the right to them,’’ he said. “Every nation has the right to self-determination for defense.’’
Stone said he wants to make films in Iran, “because they’re the biggest filmmakers in the Middle East. I’m very international-minded.’’ The opportunity arose through some personal connections.
Stone did not comment on the fact that Iran arrested filmmaker Jafar Panahi in the wake of the “Green Movement’’ street protests of 2009 and has banned him from making films because he has criticized the regime.
Stone was at the film festival to launch a new online company, FilmFunds, of which he is the CEO. A spokesman for the company said Stone’s political views were personal and did not represent FilmFunds.
One Iranian filmmaker also at the festival expressed dismay when he heard of Stone’s views.
“This is insulting,’’ said Mazdak Taebi, who has been banned from travelling back to Iran because of his anti-regime statements. “So many people have died. People there are shaking. They’re scared. It’s a police system.’’
Another Iranian filmmaker at the festival, who still lives in Tehran, declined to comment.


Actor Woody Harrelson confided Sunday that he had difficulty portraying a cop in “Rampart,” which premiered at the Toronto film festival, but critics praised his performance as his best ever.
Dozens of actors have given memorable performances as corrupt cops over the years, including Harvey Keitel in “Bad Lieutenant” (1992), Gary Oldman in “The Professional” (1994) and Richard Gere in “Internal Affairs” (1990). Denzel Washington won an Oscar for his performance as a dirty cop in “Training Day” in 2001.

“I didn’t try to stack myself up against Harvey Keitel or any of those other performances because if I were to think that way I’d have shot myself in the foot before I got out of the gate,” Harrelson told a press conference, “because those were amazing performances.” “To me it was about coming to believe that I could be a cop. That was my hardest thing,” Harrelson said.
To prepare for the role, the free spirit rode along with Los Angeles policemen on patrol, which he said helped him to believe he could be play the role.
“And then to jump into the ring with these people (pointing to his co-stars and director Oren Moverman), they make it all much more believable,” he said.


Elected president of the Maldives after spending 20 years leading a pro-democracy movement against a cruel dictatorship, Mohammed Nasheed believes it will have all been for naught if his nation of 1,200 islands is swallowed up by the ocean.
His campaign to enlist world powers to fight global warming is the focus of Briton Jon Shenk’s new documentary “The Island President,” which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival this weekend.
The two men came to Canada’s largest metropolis together to present the film, seeing an opportunity to bring much-needed attention to the plight of Nasheed’s tiny island nation off the coast of India.
“Given the gravity of the situation and how important it is for us to bring the message across,” as well as due to his government’s modest means, the documentary seemed like a good idea, Nasheed said Sunday, three months before the next UN climate change conference in Durban. For Shenk, who won acclaim for his 2003 documentary “The Lost Boys of Sudan,” the film is as much about the arrival of democracy in an entirely Muslim country as it is about climate change.
But for Nasheed it is a fight for survival.
Imprisoned and tortured before becoming president at age 41, Nasheed suddenly found himself facing a new crisis in 2008: the extinction of his country by 2050 — a modern Atlantis — and the apathy of the world’s largest polluters.
The film gains access to Nasheed’s first year in office as he sets out to influence the world’s superpowers, culminating at the 2009 Copenhagen climate summit.