Ten years in the making, Iranian director Taghi Amirani's feature debut film is a fascinating investigation into the 1953 Anglo-American coup d'état in Iran that displaced democratically elected prime minister Mohammad Mosaddegh and installed Mohammad Reza Pahlavi as Shah, turning Iran into a despotic monarchy. Tracing the coup from the events leading up to it through its aftermath, Amirani and editor and co-writer Walter Murch (Apocalypse Now, The Godfather) uncover a wealth of secrets held for over 60 years discovered in a trove of documents and film obtained from the British Film Institute (BFI). Assembling never-before-seen archival footage, animation, and interviews with witnesses on both sides of the conflict, Coup 53 presents a chilling exposé of one of the first covert actions by the US and UK to overthrow a sitting government in order to protect “national interests” at the expense of what could have been the largest democracy in the Middle East.
EXPECTED GUESTS: Editor-Writer Walter Murch, Director-Writer Taghi Amirani, Producer Paul Zaentz, Co-Producers Amir Amirani and Ahmad Kiarostami