Our Man in Tehran

Directors Larry Weinstein, Drew Taylor
Year 2013
Run Time 85min
Genre Documentary
In 1979, when the US embassy in Iran was seized by militant Islamic revolutionaries, six American diplomats managed to escape. They found shelter in the home of Canadian ambassador Ken Taylor and eventually escaped the strife-torn country, thanks to his efforts.

These events were fictionalized in the Hollywood film Argo, but this fascinating doc sets the record straight through archival footage and the words of those who experienced it, all culminating in the fantastical plan devised to smuggle the fugitives out.

“Sometimes, the truth can be more entertaining than fiction. If Argo was a high-stakes political thriller…it was also a simplistic and escapist escape movie about the power of Hollywood to defeat evil. So now…we Canadians respond with a documentary to reclaim our true story.” — Simon Houpt, The Globe and Mail

Directors

Larry Weinstein

Weinstein has received three Gemini awards for his work, including Best Direction for Beethoven’s Hair. Weinstein also directed the docs Mulroney: The Opera, The Devil’s Horn, Leslie Caron: The Reluctant Star, and Dreaming of a Jewish Christmas, and co-directed Our Man In Tehran. His latest, Propaganda: The Art of Selling Lies, premiered at Hot Docs 2019.

Drew Taylor

Our Man in Tehran was Taylor’s first film after careers in baseball and bio-engineering. He has also directed Lost and Found.

Writers

Drew Taylor, Robert Wright

Producers

Niv Fichman, Larry Weinstein, Drew Taylor

Genre

Documentary

Interests

Biography, Global Experiences, History, Literary Adaptation, Social Justice & Politics

Original Language

English