AMERICAN COUP tells the story of the first coup ever carried out by the CIA - Iran, 1953. Explores the blowback from this seminal event, as well as the coup's lingering effects on the present US-Iranian relationship. Includes a segment on the 1979 Iranian Hostage Crisis and its relation to the 1953 coup. Concludes with a section on the recent Iranian presidential election. Contains interviews with noted Middle East experts and historians and prominent public figures such as Stephen Kinzer (author, All The Shah's Men), Prof. Ervand Abrahamian, Trita Parsi, Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, Ted Koppel and Rep. Ron Paul of Texas. With Iranian cinematography by James Longley.

American Coup

A documentary thriller describing the last days of the Israeli community in Tehran, on the eve of the Islamic Revolution in 1979. The director, whose family was in Tehran at the time, uses rare archive materials to illustrate how thousands of Israelis, who enjoyed unusual affinity with the Shah's regime, wake up one morning to find their paradise vanished.