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Top Iranian actor Mohammad Reza Golzar’s £55,000 payday for three days work playing an angel in the film Democracy in Bright Daylight in November 2009 created a storm in his native country that threatened to change its tax laws.

News of Golzar’s fee for the role highlighted the rising wages being paid to the country’s film stars, and prompted the country’s Culture and Islamic Guidance Ministry (Ershad) to threaten a tax crackdown.   Film critic Reza Ostadi read out a list of names of 27 television and film actors known to have received payments of up to £60,000 for their work.   While the fees would not be considered high in the Western world, they are stratospheric for an ostensibly egalitarian society such as Iran’s, and producers were quick to seize on the publicity surrounding Ostadi’s list to complain that such fees led to rising production costs that threatened the well-being of the country’s film industry.

Dismissing the actor’s defence that the fees reflected the insecurity of their careers and were small compared to those received by the nation’s footballers, Ali-Reza Sajadpour, the head of Ershad’s cinema supervisory unit, warned that uncommonly high payments would be subject to higher taxes in future.

‘These uncommon fees have caused dissatisfaction in the cinema community and increase the cost of film production, which is not in line with our policies for promoting cinema and rising movie sales.’

Golzar’s position was not eased when it was revealed that he had also been granted a meeting with Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, during which he requested the president’s help in reviving his career after serving a legal ban over a contractual dispute.

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