REHEARSALS FOR A REVOLUTION Documentary

Captured and compiled from four decades of archives, REHEARSALS FOR A REVOLUTION is a deeply personal account of Iran’s history since the 1979 Revolution, told through actor and documentary filmmaker Pegah Ahangarani’s perspective. Ahangarani draws on footage of street protests in Iran alongside personal material from her family archives, including home videos, newspaper articles, candid photographs and a voice recording from a life cut tragically short, capturing intimate moments and collective dreams. Through lyrical editing, the filmmaker structures the film into five chronologically organized chapters dedicated to relatives and mentors, each distinguished by its own visual style accompanied by first-person narration. With a contemplative approach that pays careful attention even to painful details from the filmmaker’s memories, REHEARSALS FOR A REVOLUTION presents a condensed history of successive waves of political and social upheaval repeatedly crushed by walls of oppression. At the same time, it reveals how the Iranian people’s enduring struggle for freedom continues to reinvent and reimagine itself, much like Iranian cinema with its many vibrant eras and movements, including the work of exiled filmmakers such as Ahangarani herself.

Winner of the Golden Eye Award for Best Documentary at Cannes, this memoir reflects on the unfulfilled promises of revolution while preserving a sense of hope for the Iranian people and their ongoing fight for freedom. –Natalia Ames