The internationally acclaimed Iranian film director Abbas Kiarostami, who won the Palme d'Or at Cannes in 1997 for "A Taste of Cherry," was unable to get a United States visa in time to attend the premiere of his new film, "Ten," at the New York Film Festival last Saturday, prompting his friend and fellow director Aki Kaurismaki of Finland to boycott the festival in protest.

"If international cultural exchange is prevented, what is left?" asked Mr. Kaurismaki, whose new film "The Man Without a Past" will be shown at this year's festival. "The exchange of arms?"

Mr. Kiarostami, 62, who has been to the United States seven times in the course of his career, was told this month at the United States Embassy in Paris that the earliest he could get permission to come into the country was December.

Stringent new rules, put in place after last year's terrorist attacks, now require a three-month background check on some applicants for United States visas, in particular those from Muslim countries.

After news of Mr. Kiarostami's visa problems circulated in Europe, Mr. Kaurismaki announced that he would stay away from the festival as a gesture of solidarity. In a prepared statement, he wrote, "Not with anger (which has never brought anything good) but with deep sorrow" he had learned that the Iranian director was refused a visa because of his citizenship.

If the United States authorities do not want "an Iranian, they will hardly have any use for a Finn, either," he wrote. "We do not even have the oil."

The new visa requirements have created a logjam in the approval process, both at the regional offices of the Immigration and Naturalization Service and at United States consulates overseas.

The backup has left performers, students and academics stranded, while wreaking havoc on cultural programs across the country and throwing future plans into doubt. "The reaction that this has engendered makes you wonder what the sense of this policy is," said Richard Peña, director of the New York Film Festival, which opened on Sept. 27.

Mr. Peña said Mr. Kiarostami had traveled to Paris to apply for the visa because the United States had no diplomatic representation in Iran. But when he was told that his application would undergo the three-month background check, he refused to make any special appeal on the ground that his career as a film director should speak for itself, Mr. Peña said. "If that wasn't good enough, then he was not going to come," he said.

Last summer several members of an Iranian theatrical troupe, scheduled to perform at the Lincoln Center Festival, were denied visas on the grounds that they might decide to stay in the United States as economic refugees.

And just last month Chucho Valdés, a Grammy Award-winning jazz pianist from Cuba, was denied entry into the United States for a series of fall performances, because he, too, had to submit to a lengthy screening process. Mr. Valdés was one of 22 Cuban musicians who were unable to obtain visas in time to attend the Latin Grammy Awards in Los Angeles.

Not with anger (which has never brought anything good), but with deep sorrow, I received the news that Abbas Kiarostami, a friend of mine and one of the world's most peace-loving persons, is prevented from participating the New York Film Festival because, being a citizen of Iran, he was refused a visa.

I had also been invited to the festival, which is one of the best in the world. Under the circumstances I, too, am forced to cancel my participation - for if the present government of the United States of America does not want an Iranian, they will hardly have any use for a Finn. We do not even have the oil.

However, what concerns me more is that if Abbas Kiarostami is being treated like this; what will happen to nameless prisoners? I consider the Geneva Convention as the last hope of mankind, and as a private citizen on Finland, I accuse the Government of the United States of violating it.

Meanwhile, I would like to invite the present U.S. Secretary of Defense to visit Finland. We could take a walk in the woods and pick mushrooms. That might calm him down.

If international cultural exchange is prevented, what is left? The exchange of arms? Somewhere, someone said that every man is created equal.

Aki Kaurismaki

It's a mystery what the Bush administration thought it was protecting us from when it denied a timely visa to Iran's leading film director, Abbas Kiarostami. Surely not international embarrassment. The idea that the United States government is incapable of distinguishing between a potential terrorist and a renowned 62-year-old filmmaker who has been here seven times before without incident is not flattering to America's intelligence capacities or its reputation for cultural literacy.

Early last month Mr. Kiarostami applied at the American Embassy in Paris for permission to attend the opening of his latest film, "Ten," at the New York Film Festival last weekend. He was told that no visa could be issued before December because of a new requirement for a lengthy background check on applicants from certain countries, including Iran. Despite appeals from many in the artistic world, including a former French culture minister, Jack Lang, Washington declined to shorten the three-month delay.

Careful visa screening procedures are certainly warranted these days. But it should not take three months to uncover the background of Mr. Kiarostami, the director of thoughtful, introspective films like "A Taste of Cherry," "The Wind Will Carry Us" and "Close Up." Mr. Kiarostami has generally steered clear of controversial political issues, preferring to express himself through his movies.

Visits by other foreign artists have also had to be canceled because of new visa rules, which have now been applied to 26 countries, most of them Muslim. Such blanket restrictions based on nationality alone are counterproductive, reinforcing the notion that America is hostile to Islam in general, not just protecting itself against terrorism.

I am appalled and ashamed that Abbas Kiarostami was categorically refused a visa by the U.S. government and there is “not permitted” to accompany his film to this year’s New York Film Festival.

I want to express my solidarity with my friend and colleague, Abbas Kiarostami. Kiarostami represents the highest level of artistry in the cinema. Which should be obvious to anyone who has seen any of his films. Like all true artists, he doesn’t trade in ideologies or crude messages: his pictures offer nothing more or less than a reflection of the world around him, filtered through the sensitivity of his own consciousness.

So I was genuinely shocked to learn that Kiarostami would be unable to enter this country due to state department restrictions ? it doesn’t speak well for our government that we’re denying visas to artists of his stature for security reasons. And I am now shocked, once again, to learn that the government of Iran is attempting to censor his extraordinary new film Ten. Censorship has never done any good for anyone, and it won’t do any good now. As we all know, the ones who lose the most in the end are the censors themselves, who betray a lack of trust in the audiences they’re supposedly protecting.

Right now, more than ever, we need to listen to one another. Art can be a precious form of cultural exchange, particularly when it’s by someone as gifted as Abbas Kiarostami. I plead with the Iranian censors to leave Ten alone and to let people see it in the form in which its creator intended that it be seen.

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