Shahrzad, Mohammad Emami's money and her fee
Alidoosti starred in Shahrzad (2015 to 2018), a series co-financed by Mohammad Emami, who was arrested in 2016 in the Teachers' Reserve Fund corruption case and sentenced in 2022 to 20 years in the Bank Sarmayeh case. Critics, from journalist Nader Fatourehchi in 2016 to Kayhan and Ali-Akbar Raefipour later, demanded she explain the money and her reported high fee. She said she did not know of Ema
Editorial timeline of public reporting, not a legal finding.
- Fatourehchi presses Shahrzad cast over funding and fees - Asr Khabar, citing Saba, reported that after Emami's arrest journalist Nader Fatourehchi posted more than 20 Instagram texts questioning Shahrzad's financing and cast fees, naming Alidoosti among others, and that a "No to Shahrzad" campaign demanded transparency. A state broadcaster report cited by the outlets put her fee at 900 million tomans for about ten months; the investor could not be reached to confirm the figures. دستمزد نجومی بازیگران سریال «شهرزاد» لو رفت!
- BBC Persian: Shahrzad and "corruption in Iran" - BBC Persian reported that the series' co-investor Emami had been arrested over alleged links to the Teachers' Reserve Fund corruption, that Alidoosti dismissed talk of halting season two as "rumours", and that Fatourehchi then publicly asked her, as a feminist, to explain her view of the link. The exchange set off a social media row and a campaign asking the cast to explain. شهرزاد و قصه هزار و یک شب 'فساد در ایران'
- Emami sentenced to 20 years in the Bank Sarmayeh case - BBC Persian reported that a Tehran court sentenced Mohammad Emami, the investor behind Shahrzad, to 20 years in prison in the Bank Sarmayeh case. IranWire had earlier reported on the well-connected figures behind the series. دادگاه بانک سرمایه؛ سرمایه‌گذار سریال شهرزاد و برادرزاده رئیس پیشین قوه قضائیه ایران به زندان محکوم شدند
- Alidoosti at Cannes: "I did not know" - Asked at the Cannes press conference for Leila's Brothers, Alidoosti said, according to Tribune Honar, that she met Emami only at the end of season one, that another producer had signed her contract, that she "truly did not know" and perhaps should have, that her fee was what she would get on any project and "not astronomical", and that the money and profits are with the man now in prison. اولین واکنش ترانه علیدوستی به حواشی محمد امامی در جشنواره کن
- Kayhan: a billion-toman fee from the teachers' fund - Etemad Online and Nameh News reported that Kayhan attacked Alidoosti's Cannes remarks, writing that she had taken a billion-toman fee from money looted from the teachers' fund, and asking how, if Iran were so repressive, she had acted in more than 20 films and won state festival awards. واکنش کیهان به اظهارات ترانه علیدوستی و زهرا امیرابراهیمی در جشنواره «کن»
- Raefipour revives the Shahrzad charge; Dehbashi cites an acquittal - Ensaf News reported that Ali-Akbar Raefipour wrote on X that Alidoosti poses with "thieves of teachers' money" and took part in a money laundering project, and reposted an older post saying she went to Cannes instead of returning teachers' money. Documentary maker Hossein Dehbashi replied that a court had issued an acquittal on the financial link between Shahrzad's budget and the teachers' fund. رائفی‌پور: ترانه علیدوستی رئیس موسس‌ه‌ای برای عینیت بخشیدن به منویات فرهنگی رهبری بود