Read press releases and letters about End of Empire: Iran and the controversy with COUP 53
All Articles:
JANUARY 2021 PRESS RELEASE
In 1985 Channel 4 and ITV transmitted Iran, part of the End of Empire series. It told the story, for the first time and with frank eye-witness accounts, of the 1953 Anglo-American coup against the Iranian Prime Minister, Mohammed Mossadegh.
Statement to BAFTA members
Coup 53, potentially an excellent documentary, persists in innuendo, untruths and an unwarranted attack on the integrity of fellow film makers.
OPEN LETTER from Cate Haste to Taghi Amirani and Walter Murch
I shared the small End of Empire: Iran office with Alison Rooper and Mark Anderson, working on the parallel Egypt programme. Had you asked me, I would have told you of the thrill of excitement when Alison secured and then recorded on audio cassette the research interview with MI6 agent, Norman Darbyshire, as he described in…
Coup 53: “All this skill in service of a lie” by Mick Gold
Coup 53 was worse than I expected. The scene where Amirani talks to Alison Rooper in his office is creepy because it feels like a set-up. Alison however, conducted herself with admirable coolness. I was impressed by the way she remembered immediately that Darbyshire wasn’t filmed. I directed Rhodesia, the final film in the End of…
“Coup 53 is a potentially valuable documentary film spoilt by false assertions and fake news” by Mick Csáky
As a documentary maker with a strong interest in revealing the key events behind important moments in modern history, the film Coup 53 makes me more than a little unhappy. However, that said, the film could be redeemed by the removal of several factual errors and especially all the false claims made against Granada’s End of…
AUGUST 2020 PRESS RELEASE
Coup 53 retells the coup story in much detail but their story is wrapped round a completely false narrative – claiming that End of Empire filmed Norman Darbyshire and that the interview was cut out of an early version of the programme at MI6’s or the British Government’s request.
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End of Empire: Iran 