In a move that has surprised nearly everyone in the entertainment industry, as well as residents of Iran, authorities have allowed an open and legal showing of the animated film “Persepolis” to a small crowd of movie goers on Thursday in the capital city of Tehran.
“Persepolis” is an Oscar-nominated animated film that has caused a great amount of anger from the Iranian political and religious authorities because of its satirical portrayal of the 1979 Iranian revolution led by the Ayatollah Khomeni. Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has gone so far as to label the movie both “Islamophobic” and “anti-Iranian.”
The film’s protagonist is a young, outspoken free-thinking Iranian girl who has several encounters with ultra-religious authoritarians shortly after the Islamic Revolution began.
Because the film’s censorship was creating more of a stir than actually showing it might cause, authorities decided to allow it to be seen by a small group with limited censorship. The movie attempts to be balanced by revealing the repressive elements during the rule of the Shah of Iran, but is also very poignant about the harshness experienced since the Islamic Revolution nearly 30 years ago.
“The aim of this screening is to end the delusions surrounding the film which have been created by the media,” Mahmoud Babareza, Tehran’s Cultural Center public relations chief said in a written statement to the press. “When a film is not shown, people make all sorts of misconceptions. Cinema is cinema, after all, and it should not be put into a limited political context.”
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