Celluloid Underground
After the 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran, a boy grew up obsessed with all the movies he couldn't see. He met a mysterious film collector who saved thousands of films from destruction by the new regime. Despite arrest and torture, the collector refused to give up his secret hoard. Together they forged a friendship based on passion for cinema and resistance against tyranny. The boy escaped to exile in London to become a filmmaker, and tells their shared story of obsession and celluloid dreams.
Ehsan Khoshbakht is an Iranian filmmaker, curator and author, based in London. His debut feature Filmfarsi (2019), about the lost Iranian cinema of the Shah’s era, was released in the US by Gunpowder/Criterion, and screened at over 50 film festivals and cinematheques around the world. He has also made several archive documentaries for BBC Persian, including Duke Ellington in Isfahan (2021), which was selected for Telluride. Khoshbakht is co-director of Il Cinema Ritrovato in Bologna, the world’s premier festival for film history and restoration.
