TEHRAN – Habibollah Kasesaz, the producer of box-office hits such as “The Outcast”, died of gastric cancer in a Tehran hospital on Wednesday. He was 55.

Some Persian news websites quoting Kasesaz’s son, Mohsen, announced his death. 

His stomach was removed a few months ago after he was diagnosed with cancer.  

Kasesaz was mostly famous for the films revolving around the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war, which is known as the Sacred Defense in Iran.  

Among the films are “Hoor on Fone” by Azizollah Hamidnejad and “Family Farm” by Rasul Mollaqolipur. He was also the producer of the two episodes of director Masud Dehnamaki’s comedy series “The Outcast”, which became box-office hits in 2006 and 2008.
 
“Open String” by Mehrshad Karkhani and “A Butterfly in the Mist” by Mohammad-Javad Kasesaz are also among his credits.

He also made his directorial debut with “Carnival of Death” in 2008. 

A number of officials, including Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance Reza Salehi-Amiri, Majlis Speaker Ali Larijani, IRIB Director Abdolali Ali-Asgari, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Qasemi and the Cinema Organization of Iran director Mohammad-Mehdi Heidarian offered their condolences over the death of Kasesaz.

His funeral procession began at the Iranian House of Cinema on Friday and he was buried in the Artists Section of Tehran’s Behesht-e Zahra Cemetery.

Photo: Colleagues and relatives carry the body of producer Habibollah Kasesaz during his funeral in Tehran on July 21, 2017. (Fars/Mehdi Bolurian)

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