TEHRAN -- Can films change history? Mark Cousins, critic of BFI Southbank cinema site, has come up with a list of ten films, including the Iranian documentary “For Freedom” by Hossein Torabi, that he considers to have shaken the world, the Persian Service of ISNA reported.

“As curator of ‘Ten Documentaries That Shook the World’ at BFI Southbank, I’ve set aside questions of aesthetics to ask a pragmatic one: which films have had a demonstrable impact on the social, legislative or political climate in which they were made?
“From China we have “The River Elegy” (Jun Xia, 1988); from Japan “Minamata: The Victims and Their World” (Tsuchimoto Noriaki, 1972); from the U.S. “Bowling for Columbine” (Michael Moore, 2002) and “The Thin Blue Line” (Errol Morris, 1988); from Britain “Death of a Nation - The Timor Conspiracy” (John Pilger and David Munro, 1994), “BBC News Ethiopia Report” (Michael Buerk and Mohammed Amin, 1984) and “McLibel” (Franny Armstrong, 2005); from Germany “Triumph of the Will” (Leni Riefenstahl, 1936); from France “The Sorrow and the Pity” (Marcel Ophuls, 1970); and from Iran “For Freedom” (Hossein Torabi, 1980).
“The Chinese, German, Iranian and French films changed the moods of their nations, in some cases re-evaluating the past to influence the present. ‘For Freedom’ shores up the triumph of Imam Khomeini’s 1979 Revolution. This documentary shot in color makes the Iranian revolution look Spielbergian,” Cousins stated in his article.
Torabi had once described his movie saying, “The documentary begins with the burning of the Rex Cinema hall in the southern city of Abadan on August 19, 1979 and ends with the Islamic Republic polls in March 1980.
“The first scenes portray the people of Abadan mourning the loss of 377 fellow citizens who were burnt in the fire, accompanied by the sound of the beating of drums in the city’s cemetery. It goes on to show a scene of the burnt-out cinema hall and then lingers on a shot of a camera lying on top of a burnt shoe.
“The documentary continues with the Shah’s interview in Mehrabad Airport a few moments before his departure from the country. This scenario is followed by the arrival of Imam Khomeini and then the film moves onto scenes of the polls. The movie ends with a view of a vase of tulips which has been placed on one of the graves of a martyr in Tehran’s Behesht-e Zahra Cemetery.”
Several cinematographers including Fereidun Reypur, Karim Davami, Hossein Rafiei, Farajollah Zohurian and Hossein Kamalfar cooperated with Torabi in the production of this film