A People in the Shadows

In 1979, the Islamic Republic brought the Shah’s reign to a close. One year later, Saddam Hussein, backed by the United States, launched an attack on Iran, a war that caused over a million deaths. Teheran has since become a megalopolis of 14 million inhabitants. People in the Shadows offers us a contrasting portrait of its people, who live under the shadow of yesterday’s martyrs and in fear of their own martyrdom, yet still fully enjoy the pleasures of life on the borderline of prohibition. Paradox lies at the core of People in the Shadows, which is both an exaltation of a city and its people and a persistent interrogation of the contradictions of the government’s dogma, “Independence, liberty, Islamic Republic”, where the two faces of society are at the same time linked but opposed.