Before the Revolution (2013)

Before the Revolution: Directed by Dan Shadur. With Ervand Abrahamian, Shaul Bakhash, Zahra Eshraghi, Ayatollah Khomeini. A documentary thriller describing the last days of the Israeli community in Tehran, on the eve of the Islamic Revolution in 1979. The director, whose family was in Tehran at the time, uses rare archive materials to illustrate how thousands of Israelis, who enjoyed unusual affinity with the Shah’s regime, wake up one morning to find their paradise vanished.

“This movie will give you an excellent realistic as well as artistic idea of what it was like to be in Iran before the revolution. I have to add to it: it gives you an idea what Iranian culture is without religious fanaticism.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eif there is one thing I am proud of about being an Iranian is that through out history Iran has has been home to many cultures and races living together in much more peace than maybe anywhere in mid-east or the world for that matter.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003ethis movie shows that many Israeliu0026#39;s today have Iranian roots and its really sad to see that they had to run away like many many other Iranians that didnu0026#39;t fit with the new Islamic government. u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eI never bought the none-sense that u0026quot;allu0026quot; Israelis were in Iran spying.. they were and are very decent hardworking peopleu003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eMany people like to believe that it was all because of Americans and Israelis etc.. etc.. but the truth is that many Iranians fought long and hard for establishing and supporting monarchy, good or bad.. that is the truth, and when they got support from friends (israel, USA etc) they appreciated that support.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eI can honestly say that while Iran had countless problems especially when it came to re-distribution of wealth, but Iran was much better off under the former regime. Today, Iran is basically ruled by a foreign religion that uses extremely ruthless force at will against the people and the violence against people is in magnitude of quantity much much worse than before.”