Coup 53

Iranian émigré documentarist Taghi Amirani, working with cinema legend Walter Murch as co-writer and editor, spent ten years investigating a mysterious intervention known as Operation Ajax. In 1953, the CIA spearheaded the overthrow of Iran’s democratically elected government, led by Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh, replacing him with the Shah. They even trained his brutal secret service, the notorious SAVAK. The result, still felt today, was an increasingly autocratic, militarized Middle East and American control over the global petroleum trade. But Amirani and Murch complicate the received wisdom about what happened, uncovering the identity of a British MI6 operative who played a much larger role than has ever been offi cially acknowledged. Using animated sequences, dramatic reenactments and evocative eyewitness testimony, they have constructed a riveting excavation of history, sharing with us the labyrinthine journey involved in revealing who obscured it. (Telluride Film Festival)