COUP 53 - Special Anniversary Screening

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

Marking the 73rd anniversary of the MI6/CIA coup in Iran a special screening in the company of the director Taghi Amirani and Academy Award winning co-writer and editor Walter Murch. They will be joined by Stephen Kinzer, a leading member of the cast of COUP 53, for a post screening conversation. 

Moderator: Ellen E Jones - writer/broadcaster and Co-host of Screenshot on BBC Radio 4

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.

100% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes

The film’s editor is Walter Murch, who worked on “The Conversation” and “The Godfather: Part II” (both 1974) so there’s not much that he doesn’t know about conspiracy – how it leaks into a movie like the smell of drains.

Anthony Lane – The New Yorker

Has the air of something that grew from an impudent home movie into a magnum opus

Todd McCarthy - Hollywood Reporter

Both as a detective story and as a deep dive into a world event whose consequences linger, it is bracing, absorbing filmmaking

Ben Kenigsberg - New York Times

It has a bit of “All the President’s Men” about it

Ian Freer - EMPIRE

Simply great storytelling, full stop.

Anne Hornaday - Washington Post

A maddening, gripping portrait of how imperialism works Coup 53 is almost as concerned with the film-making process - the lists, the dead ends, the searching - as much as it is with political history

Tara Brady – The Irish Times

It is without question one of the greatest of all documentaries. Apart from its importance as a revelatory history lesson, it’s a masterpiece of humanity, thoroughness and consummate film craft.

Mike Leigh - Winner of the Palme d'Or

This powerful and authoritative documentary by the Iranian filmmaker Taghi Amirani is as gripping as any thriller

Peter Bradshaw – The Guardian

One of the best documentaries of recent years.

Michael Moore

Ralph Fiennes appears, lending a wry le Carré air to proceedings as an enigmatic MI6 agent with an explosive testimony.

Larushka Ivan-Zadeh - The Times

Amazing. Beautifully done. Clever use of archive. Unique.

Oliver Stone

A labour of love, the film is premium detective work. With admirable tenacity and care, Amirani has dragged official secrets back into the light

Tim Robey – The Daily Telegraph

This is big. This is going to be big.

Werner Herzog

It’s like taking a swim in John le Carré’s brain

Dave Calhoun - Time Out

Extraordinary.

Errol Morris

As compelling as a John le Carré novel or a Costa-Gavras classic

Allen Hunter - Screen Daily

Curzon Cinema has been hired as the venue for this event and this is not part of the Curzon programme. They are not involved in the ticketing or content of the screening.