Desert One

Filmfarsi

July 2019 •English

A found-footage essay, Filmfarsi salvages low budget thrillers and melodramas suppressed following the 1979 Islamic revolution.

Woman, Life, Freedom: An Iranian Revolution

September 2023 •French

On September 16, 2022, in Teheran, the murder by police of the young Mahsa Amini, arrested for "wearing a headscarf contrary to the law", sparked off an unprecedented insurrection. Within hours, a spontaneous movement formed around the rallying cry: "Woman, life, freedom". For the first time, women, joined by men and students, took the initiative and removed their veils, the hated symbol of the Islamic Republic. The Iranian population, from all regions and social categories, rose up in protest. Social networks went wild. The diaspora (between 5–8 million Iranians) took up the cause, and the whole world discovered the scale of this mobilization: could the theocratic regime be overthrown this time?

Stronger Than a Bullet

November 2017 •English

Iran, January 16th, 1979. Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi flees after being overthrown. Ayatollah Khomeini returns to Tehran and proclaims the Islamic Republic on April 1st, 1979. In the same year, Saddam Hussein seizes power in Iraq and, after several border skirmishes, attacks Iran on September 22nd, 1980, initiating a cruel war that will last eight years. Since its outbreak, correspondent Saeid Sadeghi documented it from its beginning to its bitter end.

Oriana Fallaci intervista Ayatollah Khomeini

September 1979 •Italian

Oriana Fallaci, the Italian journalist who is noted for her provocative interviews, interviews the leader of the Islamic Revolution, the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, on Sept 12, 1979. For 10 days Oriana Fallaci waited in the holy city of Qum for her interview with the 79 year old Ayatollah, who is the de facto ruler of Iran. On Sept. 12, she was led into the Faizeyah religious school, where Khomeini holds his audiences. She was accompanied by two Iranians Nyho and Iran prime minster Banisadr who had helped set up the interview and who served as translators. Oriana Fallaci, barefoot, enveloped in a chador, the head to toe veil of the Moslem woman, was seated on a carpet, when the Ayatollah entered, and the recorded interview could begin.

Mother of Snow Cranes

September 2024 •Finnish

Over 90 years old Ellen Vuosalo has lived many lives. First as a Finnish immigrant in Canada, then as a zoology student in California and finally as a mother of snow cranes in Iran. Iiris Härmä's Mother of Snow Cranes tells the story of an incredible woman's extraordinary life, from love to tragedy to revolution. It is a story about nature, humanity, and the role of women in both the West and Iranian culture. Or as Ellen herself says " What a life! What a world!"

Born in Evin

October 2019 •German

Follows filmmaker and actress, Maryam Zaree, on her quest to find out the violent circumstances surrounding her birth inside one of the most notorious political prisons in the world.

Recorder: The Marion Stokes Project

April 2019 •English

Marion Stokes secretly recorded television 24 hours a day for 30 years from 1975 until her death in 2012. For Marion taping was a form of activism to seek the truth, and she believed that a comprehensive archive of the media would be invaluable for future generations. Her visionary and maddening project nearly tore her family apart, but now her 70,000 VHS tapes are being digitized and they'll be searchable online.

I Am Trying to Remember

November 2021 •Persian

Pegah talks about Gholam, a man who’s not like her father, mother, uncles, or aunts, even though he’s always present at family gatherings. Gholam films these everyday scenes with his own camera. At the time, Pegah can’t imagine what the purpose of these films might be, but she’s happy to pose before the lens of this family friend, who she’s certainly very fond of.

444 jours qui ont fait plier l'Amérique

June 2022 •French

On January 20, 1981, 52 members of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran were released after 444 days of captivity. Told by those who lived through it, a crisis that traumatized America and upset the political balance in the Middle East.

We Iranian Women

September 2023 •French

Sufi, Saint & Swinger

September 2020 •English

The tragic story of an American music virtuoso who found in 1970s Iran the love and acceptance he never received back home, and who was punished by his country upon his return after the Iranian revolution.

Tiger Zinda Hai

December 2017 •Hindi

When a group of Indian and Pakistani nurses are held hostage in Iraq by a terrorist organization, a secret agent is drawn out of hiding to rescue them.

Persepolis

June 2007 •French

In 1970s Iran, Marjane 'Marji' Satrapi watches events through her young eyes and her idealistic family of a long dream being fulfilled of the hated Shah's defeat in the Iranian Revolution of 1979. However as Marji grows up, she witnesses first hand how the new Iran, now ruled by Islamic fundamentalists, has become a repressive tyranny on its own.

Septembers of Shiraz

September 2015 •English

In this adaptation of the critically acclaimed debut novel by Iranian American author Dalia Sofer, a secular Jewish family is caught up in the maelstrom of the 1979 Iranian Revolution.

Argo

October 2012 •English

As the Iranian revolution reaches a boiling point, a CIA 'exfiltration' specialist concocts a risky plan to free six Americans who have found shelter at the home of the Canadian ambassador.

Tomorrow We Are Free

November 2019 •German

Iran 1979. The Islamic Revolution is shaking up the country. Dissident Omid, who lived for several years in the German Democratic Republic with his wife, chemical engineer Beate and their mutual daughter, hears the call from his homeland and returns to Teheran with high hopes and best intentions, bringing along his family.

The Twelve Seats

August 2016 •Persian

Eskandar, who was formerly the personal driver of “Hoveyda”-prime minister of Pahlavi regime- Claims of knowing a secret of Hovayda; but no one has taken his word seriously. Untill the day he meets Amir Vaziri and tells him about his secret that in addition collection of canes and pipes, Hoveyda has a collection of “paykans”; and once he predicted the upcoming political turmoil in the country hide a very valuable thing in the rear seat of one of twelve Paykans! So Amir and Eskandar begin the search for the hidden item that they don’t know what exactly is.

The Fifth Horseman of the Apocalypse

March 2010 •English

Directed in 1980 and released in 2013. On the issue of addiction in Iran in the 1980s. Mohsen's father is going to pass away soon due to an illness, however, Mohsen himself has been missing for 6 months. A BSc medicine student, he has become a drug addict and lost himself in the slums. Setting out to help him out of his conditions, and deliver his mother's care to him, his father starts searching for him. The movie is embedded in the social conditions of the 70s AD Iran, has a 70s Iranian chivalric tincture, religious color-as was the climate of the Iranian society at the time- and is blended with historic state propaganda. For the audience of that time, this movie would have received a fair score, as it touches on religious notions. However, the issue it addresses is far more complicated and sophisticated at this age, and its propaganda outlook can no longer attract significant commercial or critical attention.

The Golden Veil

January 2011 •English

Set against a backdrop of greed, corruption and political intrigue, lies a story of love, power and betrayal. Beginning with a revolution, and ending on the other side of the world, it is a story about money, oil , and a clandestine romance of abeautiful woman in love with a man from a foreign land.. This is where cultures clash, friendships tested, bonds broken and lives lost, in an international conspiracy of lies, spies and secret agendas, hidden behind a Golden Veil.

Woman

March 2023 •Persian

Woman is the first part of a trilogy that, from the perspective of the Iranian diaspora, supports the feminist revolution in Iran. Using documentary techniques to highlight street protests, the film presents civil disobedience as a collective performance and probes the discourse around women, life, and freedom.