 | Some of this article'slisted sourcesmay not bereliable. Please help improve this article by looking for better, more reliable sources. Unreliable citations may be challenged and removed.(January 2020) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
Taghi Amirani is anIranian-born Englishphysicist anddocumentary filmmaker who lives in theUnited Kingdom.[1] He has worked primarily in television, prior to the release of the film documentaryCoup 53 in 2019.[1]
Taghi Amirani grew up inIran.[2]
In 1975 he moved toEngland to attend school. He went on to study physics at theUniversity of Nottingham.[3] His final year project at University of Nottingham wasShades of Black, a documentary about the experience of entering ablack hole.
He took a postgraduate film and television course at theUniversity of Bristol, where he madeMechanics of Love, a black-and-white silent comedy film.[4]
His first job after leaving the University of Bristol was atThames TV, where he worked as a researcher on documentaries. In 1989 he made his debut as a producer and director with an episode of Channel 4'sEquinox series entitled "Earth Calling Basingstoke". He went on to make several dozen 36 full-length films, in addition to a number of short films and commercials.
In addition toEquinox, he has written, directed, and/or produced episodes of the seriesTrue Stories,He Play,Q.E.D.,Short Stories,Auction,The Jupiter Collision,Holy Places,Encounters,Picture This,Edinburgh or Bust,Correspondent,War on Iraq,This Time Next Year, andWide Angle. He also made the six-part seriesMad about Machines, about the relationship between people and their machines.[citation needed] He was field producer and cinematographer for the 2003 TV documentaryInside Mecca, aNational Geographic production that followed three pilgrims toMecca from different parts of the world.
After theU.S. began its invasion ofAfghanistan in November 2001, Amirani went to that country and interviewed ordinary Afghans at aTaliban-run refugee camp. The result wasThe Dispossessed, which was aired in January 2002 as an episode of theBBC seriesCorrespondent. When criticized for showing some scenes of suffering, he said in his defense that “we have a choice of switching off to other people's suffering and getting on with our lives or getting involved and seeing what our governments are doing in our name. It is our job to convey that information – to bring the suffering of these people who are caught between many evils. They were oppressed by the Taliban, before that they were invaded by theRussians, they've gone through years of war and now they are being bombed by the Americans.”[2][5][6]
Amirani has explained that since he was not in Iran during the1979 revolution, he “always felt I had missed the first-hand experience of an important chapter in my country’s history. Instead, from my adopted home in England, I watched the revolution and the ensuing 26 years unfold on TV.” Over the years he came to feel that “what I was watching were developments in my homeland interpreted through the prism of mainly Western journalists and filmmakers. It was time to stop watching the stream of stereotype and customary clichés from the outside, and go find out for myself.” In 2004 he went to Iran “to look for stories” and saw a copy ofShargh, a reformist newspaper.[7] He ended up writing, producing, directing, and photographing a 2004 documentary,Red Lines and Deadlines, about the staff of the newspaper and its reformist politics. It was first aired onPBS as part of the seriesWide Angle. TheWall Street Journal described the film as “an unprecedented look into theOrwellian world of Iranian journalism.”[5]
He wrote, produced, directed, and photographed the documentaryCoup 53, which was released in 2019.[1] The film recountsOperation Ajax, the 1953 coup in Iran engineered by theCIA andMI6 to overthrow the Prime MinisterMohammad Mossadegh.[8][9] He visited theNational Security Archive atGeorge Washington University in order to make a portion of the film.[1] This film was co-produced by Ahmad Kiarostami and co-written and edited byWalter Murch.[8]
Taghi Amirani has served as a jury member at the InternationalEmmys,Royal Television Society,One World Media Awards, andSheffield International Documentary Festival. He was awarded aTED Fellowship in 2009, and the next year received a TED Senior Fellowship in 2010. In a 2014TEDx Talk he spoke about the importance of “embracing uncertainty.”[2][4]
Amirani lives in London. He ran theNew York Marathon in 2006 and 2010.[4]
| External videos | |
|---|---|
 70 years after Iranian coup, the British still won’t confess to their crimes onYouTube |