A film by Taghi Amirani
With Iran and the world once again on the brink, COUP 53 feels less like history and more like a warning.

In 1953, a military coup led by British MI6 backed by the CIA overthrew Iran's democratically elected Prime Minister, Mohammad Mossadegh. His crime: nationalising the country's oil. The truth behind that original regime change for oil was buried for decades.

Iranian director Taghi Amirani spent ten years uncovering what really happened. Working with legendary editor Walter Murch (Apocalypse Now, The Conversation, The English Patient) and a gripping performance by Ralph Fiennes, the film unfolds like a John le Carré spy thriller — except every word is true.

COUP 53 exposes the roots of today's tensions with rare clarity and urgency.

A documentary. A detective story. A reckoning.

Director Biography - Taghi Amirani

Iranian filmmaker, former physicist, 38 TV documentaries, COUP 53 first feature length documentary.

Director Statement
This is the single most important and timely film on Iran right now.

"There is nothing new in the world except the history you do not know." - Harry Truman

The current catastrophic war in Iran is rooted in the 1953 CIA/MI6 coup that destroyed my country's hopes for democracy and planted the seeds for decades of resentment and distrust and now war.

It took me 10 years to make this film. The legendary Walter Murch (Apocalypse Now, The Godfather Part II, The Conversation, The English Patient) is the co-writer and editor. Ralph Fiennes plays a real life British spy. It had its world premiere at 2019 Telluride. It is 100% Fresh on RT. Yet it has no distributor.

Since its premiere COUP 53 has been seen by no more than 20,000 people. It has been the target of a coordinated suppression.

NOW is the time for it to be seen as the single most important film on Iran.