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Exclusive: British-Iranian screenwriter Juliette Towhidi is attached to pen the untitled feature film project about Farah Pahlavi, Empress of Iran, wife of the late Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.

As Deadline announced last summer, a newly formed collaboration with Women of the Movement producers Serendipity Group and John Powers Middleton, an official documentary and film project, was in the works. The doc began production in Washington, D.C., and continued through the end of 2024. Work is set to resume this month. Emily Atef is set as the film’s director.

The film will explore the life of Shahbanou Farah Pahlavi, focusing on the resilience of a woman who, despite an exile lasting more than 45 years and mourning the loss of her husband and two children, remains deeply devoted to her duty as a sovereign and attached to her homeland. She never remarried or gave up her Iranian identity.

Exclusive: French-Iranian filmmaker Emily Atef is attached to direct an untitled feature film project centered on the life of Farah Pahlavi, Empress of Iran, who was married to the late Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi for 20 years before he died in exile in Egypt in 1980.

As Deadline announced last summer that under a newly formed collaboration with Women of the Movement producers Serendipity Group and John Powers Middleton, who Her Majesty authorized her life rights to, a documentary and a scripted project were in the works. The doc was in production in Washington, DC at the time of announcement and was expected to continue through the end of 2024 and resume in March. The scripted project being developed simultaneously is now known as the Untitled Farah Pahlavi Film Project with Atef directing.

The film will explore the life of Shahbanou Farah Pahlavi, focusing on the resilience of a woman who,...

Another screen project about Iran’s Royal Family is in the works.

“Queen Cleopatra” director Tina Gharavi is set to co-direct a new drama series titled “The Shah, The Spy, The Madman” alongside Iranian-American series creator Shahriar William Raee.

The project, produced by Caspian Pictures, is envisioned as a returning series and aims to bring the story of Iran’s last emperor, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, to the screen.

“The Shah, The Spy, The Madman” is set to go into pre-production in late 2024, with the pilot and first season ready to go. Casting is in the works.

The first season will focus on the U.S.’s covert plot to overthrow Pahlavi in the early 1950s as operatives oust his Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh and install a pliable young King in order to thwart the Soviet Union. Two more seasons are also planned.

“This series requires filmmakers experienced in telling stories...

Exclusive: Farah Pahlavi, Empress of Iran, is ready to tell her story in a big way.

Under a newly announced collaboration with Women of the Movement producers Serendipity Group and John Powers Middleton, who Her Majesty has authorized her life rights to, a documentary and a scripted project are currently in the works. The doc project recently began shooting in Washington, D.C., with production expected to continue throughout the year. The scripted project is being developed simultaneously.

“I’m interested in [Serendipty] wanting to tell my story through a documentary and a scripted project, but I want them to go beyond that. I want to show what Iran is and who the Iranian people are. I want them to talk about my country, especially its history and culture which is very important to me,” says Pahlavi, who was married to the late Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi for 20 years before he...

An epic drama series about Iran’s last monarchy is in the works, Variety has learned.

Inspired by “The Crown,” Netflix’s sweeping dramatization of the British royal family, “The Last Shah” is set to span four decades beginning during World War II, when the young monarch, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, ascended to the throne, and ending in 1979 with the Islamic Revolution and U.S. embassy hostage crisis in Tehran.

The series, which is in development at writer Morrie Rosmarin’s production company Random Access Media, will follow the story of Pahlavi and his third wife, Queen Farah Pahlavi. Often compared to Jackie Kennedy, the stylish and progressive queen was a champion of women’s rights and modern art. She married the Shah in 1959 clad in a dazzling Dior gown embroidered with silver thread and pearls, designed by Yves Saint Laurent.

“A heroic and ultimately tragic story of a wife, mother...

Michael Butler, the Tony-winning producer who brought Hair to Broadway in 1968 and later produced the film adaptation and many other productions of the show, died Monday in Santa Barbara. He was 95.

His attorney confirmed the news on behalf of Butler’s family but give not provide details.

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As a producer, social figure and international bon vivant, Michael Butler was an international celebrity in the 1960s and ’70s. As his 1968 production of Hair became an international hit, with 12 productions around the world, his friendships grew among exotic global figures such as the Shah of Iran and the Mahajarah of Jaipur. As a host at his lavish polo grounds in the UK,...

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The filmmakers behind HBO’s Hostages didn’t know that their four-part documentary would premiere in the middle of the second week of anti-government protests in Iran stemming from the death of a young woman in state police custody. They were probably relatively confident, though, that no matter when Hostages debuted, it would have immediacy.

The series examines the Iran hostage crisis of 1979-1981 in full context, before and after the 444-day international crisis that represented a historical linchpin event for both countries. It was integral to the 40+ years Iran has now spent in diplomatic isolation from much of the West, an illustration of the sometimes catastrophic consequences of even a populist revolution. And it was integral to the 1980 presidential election in the United States, an election that ushered in the version of the political right as we now understand it, as well...

On the 4th of November, in the aftermath of the 1979 Iranian revolution, the 'Muslim Student Followers of the Imam's Line' staged a sit in at the American embassy in Tehran. They were protesting about the Americans providing asylum to Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the deposed Shah of Iran. Pahlavi's brutal reign was characterised by gross inequality, oppression, torture and killing. When the students detained members of the embassy staff, the protest took on a life of its own, turning into a 444 day long hostage crisis.

The HBO documentary series Hostages covers some of the events in the lead up to the crisis, the 444 days, and its immediate aftermath. It consists of about 4 hours of historic footage and interviews with many of the people involved: hostages, students, politicians, and journalists. Combined with an explanatory voiceover, it does a good job of laying out the timeline of events. The interviewees...

In Showtime’s new docuseries “Gossip” a recording of Donald Trump pretending to be his own publicist is played; a story about Tom Cruise’s front teeth falling out during a dinner with former New York Post editor-in-chief Col Allen is told; and 91-year-old Cindy Adams defends her past and present friendships with Roy Cohn, Imelda Marcos, John Gotti, Gen. Manuel Noriega and, of course, Trump.

But beyond salacious Page Six stories and Adams’ questionable friendships, “Gossip,” is at its core an examination of power and how Rupert Murdoch fundamentally shifted the foundation of the news industry via the New York Post and its tabloid journalism.

The four-part docuseries explores how New York City’s most prominent gossip columnists – Liz Smith, George Rush, Richard Johnson and Adams – built their careers and used their power.

“Gossip” director-producer Jenny Carchman is no stranger to covering media outlets, having received an Emmy nomination...

Merle Oberon films: From empress to duchess in 'Hotel.' Merle Oberon films: From starring to supporting roles Turner Classic Movies' Merle Oberon month comes to an end tonight, March 25, '16, with six movies: Désirée, Hotel, Deep in My Heart, Affectionately Yours, Berlin Express, and Night Song. Oberon's presence alone would have sufficed to make them all worth a look, but they have other qualities to recommend them as well. 'Désirée': First supporting role in two decades Directed by Henry Koster, best remembered for his Deanna Durbin musicals and the 1947 fantasy comedy The Bishop's Wife, Désirée (1954) is a sumptuous production that, thanks to its big-name cast, became a major box office hit upon its release. Marlon Brando is laughably miscast as Napoleon Bonaparte, while Jean Simmons plays the title role, the Corsican Conqueror's one-time fiancée Désirée Clary (later Queen of Sweden and Norway). In a supporting role – her...

SFv1

The first photo has been released from "Infini" and "Gabriel" director Shane Abbess' new sci-fi action film "SFv1". Set in a universe of interplanetary colonization, Kellan Lutz plays a mysterious drifter who teams with an off-world military contractor (Daniel MacPherson) amid a global crisis.

Temuera Morrison, Rachel Griffiths and Bren Foster also star in the film which is currently midway through production in Australia. [Source: THR]

Untitled Shah Project

Melisa Wallack ("Dallas Buyers Club," "Mirror Mirror") is set to pen the screenplay for "King of Kings" at Gateway Films with that project currently lining up a director. Terry Stone penned the original treatment and will produce.

The story deals with Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the last Shah of Iran and explores his often fraught relationship with the United States It also documents the mistakes that set the stage for the Iranian revolution and the rise of religious leader Ruhollah Khomeini. [Source: Variety]

Power Rangers...

Informative but tedious talking-head doc Our Man in Tehran is for anyone who watched Argo and then wished to hear a ditzy, history-obsessed uncle ramble about the real-life political stakes of the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis. Co-directors Drew Taylor and Larry Weinstein inadvertently make well-spoken experts like former National Security Councilman Gary Sick and American Consulate officer Bob Anders look embarrassingly unfocused. They make Sick and Anders talk too much about the Carter administration's fraught attitude toward Ayatollah Khomeini and Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, and not enough about Canadian diplomat Ken Taylor, the title subject and the man who sheltered the six American hostages who escaped Tehran during the retroactively named "Canadian Cap...

Argo satirises the events of the Iran hostage crisis, yet, despite being branded 'an offensive act' and added to a list of 'anti-Iranian' films, Affleck's approach is strangely apologetic

In December 1979, a handmade placard outside the occupied Us embassy in Tehran read: "As an Iranian I want you corresponders + journalists + film-takers [to] tell the truth to the world." Whatever the truths of the Iranian revolution – most would agree it began as a popular uprising driven in part by plausible claims against Us policies – film-makers addressing its aftermath from inside Iran have had to depend on allegorical techniques, while those free to address it less obliquely from abroad have had much read into their motives.

Iran's rulers regard foreign productions on Iranian subjects – whether by émigrés or non-Iranians – with prejudice. Warnings of "soft war" and "psychological warfare" waged through culture and entertainment are a recurring theme in Iranian state media. Such...