Description
This film looks at the seismic events that led to the Fall of the Shah in Iran. The Shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi ruled Iran from September 1941 to February 1979. From the start, he was determined to transform his impoverished and feudal country into a modern industrialised nation. To the documentary makers who tracked most of his reign, he made a fascinating subject. He was seen as regal, autocratic and over ambitious. But the documentary makers, his ally America, and even the Shah himself were slow to spot the forces that would prove to be his real undoing. The Islamic revolution toppled the Shah and brought Ayatollah Khomeini to power in 1979. It was the first religious revolution in modern history and the first televised revolution ever. Day after day, the world woke up to images of Ayatollah Khomeini defying the Shah and the Americans. For the first time the world witnessed the power of political Islam to change societies.