Inheritance (2015)

In 2011, I realized that the DMV had misspelled my last name. This prompted me to search online and to my shock books came up describing my father's role in the development of modern Iran. For the first time in my life all that seemed fact vanished. So began a 4 year search for my identity as an Iranian American. I most vividly remember witnessing at age nine one of the most tumultuous events in modern Iranian history: the CIA-led coup of 1953 that toppled Dr Mossadegh and installed the Shah. This event, virtually unknown to most Americans, not only shaped my life but the future course of events in 1979 Iran. inheritance, weaves my personal story with the views of author, Stephen Kinzer, (All The Shah's Men) and historians, Ervand Abrahamian, (The Coup) and Mohammad Majd, (Britain and Reza Shah). Through their collective insight we begin to understand the roots of the 1979 Islamic Revolution and the consequences of blow-back in geo-political terms. One comes to comprehend the deep rooted distrust of the US within the Iranian psyche and why the US and Iran fell so far apart. inheritance, is a film that provides historical perspective on Iran at a time in which such perspective -- at least here, in the United States -- is deeply needed, there is an opportunity to heal this wound and further the cause of peace and global stability. I have been a documentary filmmaker for most of my adult life, but inheritance is, quite literally, the film I was born to make.