TEHRAN: Noted Iranian filmmaker Dariush Mehrjui and his wife Vahideh Mohammadifar have been killed. The Iranian official media reported that they were stabbed to death at their home by an unknown assailant.

According to news agency IRNA, the bodies were found with knife wounds on their necks. The director and his wife live 30 km away from Tehran, the capital of Iran. The report also states that their daughter Mona Mehrjui found the bodies when she came home last night to visit her parents.

Earlier, Vahideh had expressed her concern through social media after she had received death threats. The police have started an investigation into the incident. Officials say that the reason for the murder is not clear. Mehrjui has made numerous contributions to the field of cinema in the last 50 years. Mehrjui, 83, is known as the co-founder of the new wave cinema movement in Iran in the early 1970s. He studied film at the University of California, Los Angeles in the 1960s. The movie 'The Cow' released in 1969 started the new wave movement in Iran.

Mehrjui has received numerous accolades in the field of cinema, including the Golden Seashell Award at the 1993 San Sebastian Film Festival and the Silver Hugo Award at the 1998 Chicago International Film Festival. In 2015, he was honoured with the Lifetime Achievement Award at the International Film Festival of Kerala.