Once Upon a Time in Iran
Price: £12.99
US Title: 'Pilgrimage to Karbala'
Producer: Rebecca Dobbs
Director: Kevin Sim
1 x 90 mins
A Wide Angle special for thirteen/WNET New York
Winner - Gold Plaque, HUGO Television Awards 2008, Investigative Reporting/News Documentary
Nominated - Grierson Awards 2007, Best Documentary on a Contemporary Issue
Nominated - Broadcast Awards 2008, Best Documentary
Highly Commended - Broadcast Awards 2008, Best Documentary
"An extraordinary road movie. Beautifully filmed and essential viewing"
- The Times
In 680 AD at Karbala, in deserts of Iraq, Prophet Mohammad’s grandson Husayn was killed – butchered alongside almost all of his family. Their heads were put on stakes and delivered to the evil tyrant, Yazid. Today many Iranians believe there is a new Yazid in the world. His name is George Bush.
Two hundred years later, at Samarra, also in modern-day Iraq, a six year old boy attends the funeral of his father, and goes into hiding. Shi’a Muslims believe that he is still in hiding, waiting to return at the end of the world. They call him the Hidden Imam.
In the summer of 2006, on the eve of the birthday of the Hidden Imam, a bus full of pilgrims left Tehran in Iran on the dangerous journey to Karbala in Iraq. Once Upon a Time in Iran follows this breath-taking journey – a spiritual and emotional roller-coaster - to reveal how these two ancient crimes - a massacre and the disappearance of a little boy – became the founding legends of Shi’a Islam and still shape the dangerous world of the Middle – East today.
Once Upon a Time in Iran is a film about the power of stories. Behind the headlines that read ‘The Axis of Evil’ and ‘The New Hitler’, the pilgrims reveal the real story of the Iranian Nuclear Crisis: another text that reads Husayn and the Hidden Imam. And a more forbidding truth, that in Karbala, Iranians believe they already have a secret weapon far more powerful than the Atom Bomb.
Press
UK press:
"Remarkable" - The Independent
"Stunning and expertly crafted" - The Evening Standard
“Intelligent, articulate, passionate, this was an extraordinary humane portrait” - The Daily Telegraph
“(But taken purely as filmmaking) it was tremendous, taking its time, allowing images to seep in, clashes of tone and mood to pass unremarked and understated.” - The Independent
“Stunning and expertly crafted documentary” - Metro
“An insight into an intriguing culture” - The Guardian
“As well as being beautifully filmed and put together, it could hardly be more essential viewing” - The Times
US/Canada press:
“A timely and intriguing documentary” - ABC
“It's a proper film, photographed with grace and style, edited for the thoughtful viewer, with beautiful, haunting background music rooted in the musical traditions of Persia and Iran.” - The Calgary Herald (Alberta)
“…thoughtful and graceful, beautiful to look at and peaceful to listen to.”
- The Calgary Herald (Alberta)
“…learn more about Shia-Sunni fratricide than any of our newspapers have told us.”
- NYMag
RRP: £: 12.99
Category: DVDs
Model: Once Upon a Time in Iran