9/11 Opens in Tehran
Dar Al-Hayat 2004/09/15

Beirut

In an exceptional event, residents of the Iranian capital can now watch American filmmaker Michael Moore's controversial documentary Fahrenheit 9/11 in Tehran's movie theatres.

9/11 is the first American film to be screened in the Islamic Republic for over two decades, due to an undeclared ban of the U.S. film industry's productions in Iran.

An official from The Farabi Cinema Foundation (FCF), the exclusive importer of movies for theatrical and video release in Iran said, "we bought the screening rights of the movie, which started playing last Monday (September 13), and will be initially released in two movie theatres in Tehran only."

9/11's opening at a Tehran theatre
The first documentary ever to reach a top spot in the U.S. box office, Academy Award winner Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 is a very critical examination of U.S. President George W. Bush's behavior in the wake of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington; it also slams the W. administration's fabrication and launching of the wars on Afghanistan and Iraq, for economic and personal interests.

Since Monday, the two movie theatres showing Moore's film have been packed with a sold-out crowd, as the documentary is not only the first American film production to be released in Iran since the 1980's, but is also one of the rarest, if not the only, foreign artistic production not to be cut by Iranian censorship authorities.