COUP 53 screening + Q&A with Iranian director Taghi Amirani. 5pm Friday 23 October Boole 1, UCC.

In this documentary-meets-detective-story, there is a reckoning with one of the most striking foreign interventions. In 1953, a military coup led by British MI6 and backed by the CIA overthrew Iran’s democratically elected prime minister, Mohammad Mossadegh.

His crime: nationalising the country’s oil. The truth behind that original regime change for oil was buried for decades. Iranian director Taghi Amirani - physics graduate of the University of Nottingham - spent 10 years uncovering what really happened. With the handiwork of Oscar-winning editor Walter Murch (Apocalypse Now, The Godfather Part II, The English Patient) and a gripping performance by Ralph Fiennes, the film unfolds like a John le Carré spy thriller — except every word is true. Coup 53 feels less like history and more like a warning: it exposes the roots of today’s war with rare clarity and urgency.

Tickets are free but booking is essential:

https://www.eventbrite.ie/e/2002797737948?aff=oddtdtcreator

A maddening, gripping portrait of how imperialism works Coup 53 is almost as concerned with the film-making process - the lists, the dead ends, the searching - as much as it is with political history  -  Tara Brady – The Irish Times

The film’s editor is Walter Murch, who worked on “The Conversation” and “The Godfather: Part II” (both 1974) so there’s not much that he doesn’t know about conspiracy – how it leaks into a movie like the smell of drains. - Anthony Lane – The New Yorker

Ralph Fiennes appears, lending a wry le Carré air to proceedings as an enigmatic MI6 agent with an explosive testimony. - Larushka Ivan-Zadeh - The Times

This powerful and authoritative documentary by the Iranian filmmaker Taghi Amirani is as gripping as any thriller. A riveting documentary on a very British coup. A grim curtain-raiser to today's tragedies. - Peter Bradshaw – The Guardian

COUP 53 official website https://www.coup53.com/

TRAILER https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Bf2CB45ndo

Tickets: https://www.eventbrite.ie/e/2002797737948?aff=oddtdtcreator

This screening is a collaboration between the Departments of Sociology and Criminology and Film & Screen Media.