| COUP 53 (119 min) Iran/UK/US |
watch trailer |
Director: Taghi Amirani
Producers: Taghi Amirani,
Ahmad Kiarostami, Paul Zaentz
Editor: Walter Murch
Description:
While making a
documentary about the CIA/MI6
coup in Iran in 1953,
Iranian director Taghi
Amirani and editor Walter
Murch (Apocalypse
Now, The Conversation, The English Patient) discover never seen before archive material hidden for decades. The
16mm footage and documents not only allow the filmmakers to tell the
story of the overthrow of the Iranian government in unprecedented
detail but also leads to explosive revelations about dark secrets
buried for 67 years. Working with Ralph
Fiennes to help bring the lost material to life, what begins as a historical
documentary about four days in August 1953 turns into a live
investigation, taking the filmmakers into uncharted cinematic waters.
The roots of Iran’s volatile relationship with America and Britain
has never been so forensically and dramatically exposed.
Biography:
Taghi Amirani produced and
directed Earth Calling Basingstoke,
his first TV documentary made for the British Channel 4 flagship
science series Equinox. Inspired by the fictional character Felix
Happer, played by Burt Lancaster in Bill Forsyth’s Local
Hero, Basingstoke tells the heart-warming and quirky stories of British amateur
astronomers. The Guardian said It's Taghi Amirani's first film and a
beauty of its quiet kind. He is a born miniaturist and they are a
valuable, rare, and endangered species. In 2001 he went to
Afghanistan for the BBC to film the plight of Afghan refugees as the
US and British bombs began to fall weeks after 9/11. The
Dispossessed was shot in a Taliban-controlled
refugee camp over nine eventful days. In 2002 in the lead up to the
invasion of Iraq Amirani made a short polemic for Channel 4 News
called War on Iraq: Just Say No.
In 2004 Amirani made his first film back home in Iran. Gaining
exclusive access to Shargh, Iran’s leading reformist newspaper, Red
Lines and Deadlines was made for the PBS
series Wide Angle.
Walter Murch's five decades in cinema as editor, sound mixer, writer and director stretches back to 1969 and includes work on THX-1138, The Godfather I, II, and III, American Graffiti, The Conversation, Apocalypse Now, The English Patient, Touch of Evil, The Talented Mr. Ripley, Cold Mountain, and many other films with directors such as George Lucas, Fred Zinnemann, Philip Kaufman, Anthony Minghella, Kathryn Bigelow, Sam Mendes and Brad Bird. Murch's pioneering achievements in sound were acknowledged by Coppola when he granted the screen credit of Sound Designer to Murch for Apocalypse Now. Murch has been nominated for nine Academy Awards (six for editing picture and three for sound mixing) and has won three Oscars: for best sound on Apocalypse Now and for Best Film Editing and Best Sound for his work on The English Patient. Murch has also edited and co-written Particle Fever on the search for the Higgs Boson.
Contact Information:
w: http://www.coup53.com
e: taghi@amiranimedia.com
