9th Annual Film Festival: The Green Wave-Iran

The Green Wave (Iran), 2009

A film by Ali Samadi Ahadi

Official selection at 2011 Sundance Film Festival

The Middle East Studies Committee and the Khayrallah Program for Lebanese-American Studies is proud to present the 9th Annual Middle East Film Festival. This year’s theme is REVOLUTION!

The Green Wave (Iran) by Ali Samadi Ahadi is the third of  four documentaries about the revolutionary changes that have taken place in the region with selections from Egypt, Lebanon, Iran and Iraq.  All films will be shown at 7 PM in the Erdahl Cloyd Theater in the D.H. Hill Library on NC State University’s campus.

9th Annual Middle East Film Festival

TOMORROW, Wednesday, October 30th

7pm at NC State University

Many in Iran believed the nation was on the verge of a new age of freedom and progress as young people were expected to play a key role in the presidential elections. Mir Hossein Mousavi, a longtime proponent of political reform in Iran, was predicted to win handily, but to the surprise of most observers and the dismay of many, incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was declared the victor. The response was immediate and angry, and as Iranians took to the street to protest what many saw as a rigged election, Ahmadinejad’s forces responded with violence, arrests, and repressive tactics that were decried by human-rights advocates around the world.

However, if the revolt was unsuccessful, this time Iranians were able to document the actions of the government and sent their message to the world through Twitter messages, Internet postings, and videos shot with amateur cameras and cell phones.  Filmmaker Ali Samadi Ahadi used interviews, on-the-scene footage, and animated reenactments to tell the story of the Iranian revolution that failed and its legacy in the documentary The Green Wave, which was an official selection at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival.

Check out the trailer here: