Iranian director Asghar Farhadi has been cleared of charges of plagiarism over his film A Hero brought by one of his students, the agency representing him said on Wednesday.

The film, about a prisoner in the Iranian city of Shiraz, won the grand prix at the Cannes film festival in 2021.

It was the subject of a copyright infringement claim issued the following year by one of his former students, Azadeh Masihzadeh, who alleged it was based on her documentary All Winners, All Losers.

“The verdict in the case of alleged copyright infringement in the film A Hero has been delivered and the work has been completely cleared of these accusations,” the agency said in a statement.

“Seven experts” appointed by the Iranian courts “unanimously rejected all the plaintiff’s claims”, said the statement, which was quoted by the official Irna news agency.

A Hero is the story of a prisoner who becomes famous after finding a purse of gold coins and returning it to its owner, despite suffering extreme poverty.

Farhadi rejected the claims of plagiarism during the 2022 Cannes film festival.

“When an event has already happened … it belongs in the public domain,” he told reporters at the time. “It had been the subject of an article in a famous newspaper in Iran, that anyone can find with a simple Google search,” Farhadi added.

“Anyone can have their own interpretation of this story. A Hero is an interpretation, just like this documentary, and there is no question of copyright, absolutely not.”

Farhadi has twice won the Academy Award for best foreign language film, for 2011’s A Separation and 2016’s The Salesman.