There Is No Evil Budget

What Is the Budget of There Is No Evil (2020)?

There Is No Evil (2020), directed by Mohammad Rasoulof, was produced on an estimated budget between $300,000 and $700,000. The filmmakers have never disclosed an official production cost, but the figure is consistent with comparable Iranian independent festival films of the same era that were produced clandestinely in country with European co production partners providing post production and sales support.

The film was financed as an Iran Germany Czech Republic co production with Cosmopol Film, Razor Film, and Iranian outfit Rasoulof Film Production. The international co production structure was necessary because Rasoulof had been banned from filmmaking by the Iranian government and was working underground without official government sanction. Films Boutique handled worldwide sales. At this budget tier the financial model depends entirely on festival pickup, art house theatrical, and international streaming licensing.

Key Budget Allocation Categories

There Is No Evil's production budget broke down across the standard underground Iranian independent cost centers:

• Above-the-Line Talent: Mohammad Rasoulof directed without on screen credit in early festival materials due to the government ban on his filmmaking activity. The Iranian cast worked at deferred or minimal day rate compensation, common for clandestine productions in country. Talent compensation absorbed a small share of the overall spend.
• Locations and Underground Production: The film shot covertly across multiple Iranian locations including urban Tehran and remote rural areas. The production employed a deliberate four short film structure in part as a security measure, allowing each segment to be shot as if it were a standalone short under the government threshold that required formal feature production permits.
• Equipment and Crew: The production worked with minimal handheld digital camera equipment and a small Iranian crew, with German co production partners providing back end post production support after footage was smuggled out of Iran.
• Post Production: Editing, color grading, sound mix, and music finishing took place in Berlin Germany through Cosmopol Film and Razor Film. The international post production was a meaningful share of the overall spend at this budget tier.
• Music: The film leaned on minimal score and sourced traditional Iranian folk music selectively, working at a deeply contained music budget.
• Festival Delivery: The European co production partners handled deliverables for the Berlin Film Festival 2020 main competition premiere, including digital cinema package mastering and international sales materials.

How Does There Is No Evil's Budget Compare to Similar Films?

At an estimated $300,000 to $700,000, There Is No Evil sits at the lower end of contemporary Iranian independent festival cinema. Useful comparisons include:

• A Hero (2021): Budget approximately $1,500,000 | Worldwide $2,300,000. Asghar Farhadi's subsequent Iranian Cannes Grand Prix winner ran at roughly three times the There Is No Evil budget on an officially sanctioned production framework.
• Holy Spider (2022): Budget approximately $1,000,000 | Worldwide $2,800,000. Ali Abbasi's Iran set serial killer thriller, shot in Jordan due to safety concerns, ran at twice the There Is No Evil budget on a more conventional thriller register.
• Taxi (2015): Budget approximately $500,000 | Worldwide $700,000. Jafar Panahi's Berlin Golden Bear winning previous Iranian underground film ran at a comparable budget tier, also produced under filmmaking ban conditions.
• Close Up (1990): Budget approximately $250,000 | Worldwide unknown. Abbas Kiarostami's touchstone Iranian docufiction sits at the foundational lower tier of the country's independent festival tradition.

There Is No Evil Box Office Performance

There Is No Evil received a limited international art house theatrical release across European, North American, and select Asian markets through 2020 and 2021. The film grossed approximately $400,000 to $600,000 in worldwide theatrical revenue, with the majority captured in European territories where Iranian underground cinema has the deepest art house audience base. The film was banned from theatrical release in Iran.

The financial breakdown reflects the global art house festival model:

• Production Budget: $300,000 to $700,000 (estimated)
• Estimated Prints & Advertising (P&A): approximately $200,000 to $400,000 across all distributors
• Total Estimated Investment: $500,000 to $1,100,000
• Worldwide Gross: approximately $400,000 to $600,000 (limited art house theatrical only)
• Net Return: primarily through festival prize money, international territory licensing, and streaming licensing
• ROI: modest, but recouped through the Berlin Golden Bear prize and subsequent licensing

The Berlin Golden Bear prize money and the global art house licensing on the strength of the festival win drove the film's overall recoupment, with Kanopy, Mubi, and other specialty streaming platforms providing meaningful back end revenue in the years following the theatrical bow.

There Is No Evil Production History

Mohammad Rasoulof developed the four short film structure of There Is No Evil through 2018 and 2019 specifically as a security measure under the conditions of his Iranian government filmmaking ban. Iranian regulations required formal permits for feature film production, but no equivalent permits for short films, allowing Rasoulof to shoot each segment as a standalone short before assembling them into the final anthology.

The production worked clandestinely across Tehran and remote rural locations during 2019, with footage smuggled out of Iran to Germany for post production. Rasoulof himself remained in Iran during production, periodically reporting to authorities for ongoing legal proceedings related to his previous films and political activism.

The film premiered in competition at the 70th Berlin International Film Festival in February 2020. Rasoulof was unable to attend the festival due to his Iranian travel ban, and his daughter Baran Rasoulof accepted the Golden Bear prize on his behalf when the film won the festival's top award. The win drew immediate Iranian government condemnation and intensified Rasoulof's ongoing legal jeopardy.

Awards and Recognition

There Is No Evil won the Golden Bear for Best Film at the 70th Berlin International Film Festival in February 2020, the festival's highest honor. The win marked the third consecutive Berlin Golden Bear awarded to an Iranian filmmaker working under government restrictions, following Jafar Panahi's Taxi in 2015.

The film also won the Asia Pacific Screen Award for Best Film and received nominations at the European Film Awards. It featured prominently on year end best of international cinema lists for 2020 across multiple major publications including Sight and Sound, Cahiers du Cinema, and Film Comment. Mohammad Rasoulof's direction received critical attention as part of the broader trade press conversation about Iranian underground cinema.

Critical Reception

There Is No Evil received broadly positive reviews. The film holds a 96% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 51 critic reviews, with an average rating of 8.1 out of 10. Metacritic scored the film at 82 out of 100 based on 11 critic reviews, indicating universal acclaim. CinemaScore polling was not conducted given the art house theatrical footprint.

Manohla Dargis of The New York Times called the film "an essential moral inquiry conducted under conditions of profound personal risk" and praised Rasoulof's direction. Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian awarded the film five stars out of five and described it as "a film of devastating moral clarity." Justin Chang, then at the Los Angeles Times, highlighted the structural elegance of the four story anthology framework.

Negative reviews were minimal and generally focused on what a small number of reviewers characterized as the relatively literal moral framing of the third and fourth stories. The broader critical consensus positioned There Is No Evil as one of the major international films of 2020 and a landmark contribution to Iranian underground cinema, an outcome that the Berlin Golden Bear win cemented in international film history.