Iranian filmmaker Mehdi Naderi, who split from “Welcome to Tehran” last week over Iranian cultural officials’ refusal to approve foreign actors for the film project, is making a docudrama on German secret agents in Iran during World War II.
The docudrama, which has been given the tentative title of “Migration, Migration”, is based on a book of the same name, Naderi said in a press release on Saturday.
The book comprises Ata Taheri’s accounts of World War II in Iran.
The film explores how Bernhardt Schulze-Holthus, an officer in German counter-intelligence and three other German secret agents penetrated Qashqai tribes in southern Iran to provoke their tribesmen to fight against the Allies.
“Hitler’s army had been stopped at the gates of Leningrad and the British and Russian armies increasingly developed their resistance. Britain and Russia pressured Reza Shah to close down the German embassy, where they believed was a home to German secret agents. Afterwards, the German secret agents were forced to flee,” Naderi said.
“Schulze-Holthus and three other German agents took refuge among the Qashqai nomads who took the Germans with them on their yearly migration to the nearby mountains. Based on Hitler’s plan to draw Iran into the war, the German agents hoped to inflame the tribesmen’s Anglophobia. The docudrama will study the outcomes of the plan,” he added.
Naderi said that Filmmuseum Berlin, and the Anthropological Institute and Museum of University of Zurich provided sources of materials for the film, which is expected to premiere on the anniversary of the war this year on September 1.
Naderi’s war drama “Farewell Baghdad” represented Iran at the 83rd Annual Academy Awards in the Best Foreign Language Films category in 2011.
He has recently withdrawn from “Welcome to Tehran” after he failed in his attempt to obtain the approval from Iranian officials for two Swiss actors to work for the film project, which was to explore problems tourists face due to the sanctions on Iran.
MMS/YAW
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