The bodies of Iranian film director Dariush Mehrjui and his wife Vahida Mohammadifar were found dead by their daughter.
Mohammadifar were found with stab injuries in their home near the capital, Tehran, on Saturday evening, Iranian authorities say.
Mehrjui was considered one of the founders of Iranian new wave cinema.
Four people have been identified in connection to the deaths, according to local media reports.
Hossein Fazeli, the chief justice, claimed that Mehrjui had extended an invitation to his daughter to spend the evening with him at his residence in the city of Karaj.
She reportedly discovered her parents’ bodies when she got there.
A recent complaint made by Mohammadifar, a screenwriter and costume designer, reportedly claimed that she had received threats and that her home had been broken into.
Houman Seyedi, an Iranian actor and filmmaker, was one of several who responded to the killings on social media by calling them “terrible and brutal.”
A villager’s fixation with the titular cow is the subject of Mehrjui’s 1969 film The Cow, which narrates the tale. Mehrjui, who studied in the US as a young man and then lived in France for five years, initially gained national and worldwide attention with this work.