'Persepolis' shown legally in Tehran

Authority allows censored version to screen

By BRYAN PEARSON

BAGHDAD -- Oscar-nominated animated film "Persepolis," which had angered Iran's authorities for its satirical portrayal of the 1979 Iranian revolution, has finally been shown in public in Tehran.

Some 70 people crowded into a small hall in a cultural center on Feb. 14 to watch the film -- legally.

Pic, which focuses on its young heroine's brushes with the authorities soon after the Islamic Revolution began in the 1980s, was also screened at the Rasaneh Cultural Center in Tehran two days earlier.

"The aim of this screening is to end the delusions surrounding the film which have been created by the media," said the center's public relations chief, Mahmoud Babareza. "When a film is not shown, people make all sorts of misconceptions. Cinema is cinema, after all, and it should not be put into a limited political context."

"Persepolis" had been condemned by the government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as "Islamophobic" and "anti-Iranian."

The version shown was a DVD copy with Farsi subtitles. Some scenes of a sexual nature were censored, but the screening took place with the approval of the cultural authorities.

"Persepolis," which won a jury prize at Cannes (shared with Mexico's "Silent Light"), is based on the bestselling graphic novel by Iranian-French emigre Marjane Satrapi.

Co-directed by Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud, pic shows repression under the shah but also portrays the social crackdown and executions that followed the Islamic Revolution led by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1979.