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Title Guests Of The Ayatollah: Takeover - Ep 1 of 4 / Director: Keane, David
Published Australia : SBS ONE, 2010
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Description 1 online resource (streaming video file) (55 min.) ; 288837857 bytes
Summary The series Guests of the Ayatollah is an adaptation of Mark Bowden's best-selling book of the same name, this four-part documentary series is a suspenseful account of the Iran hostage crisis of 1979-81, an event that gripped and ultimately changed the world.On 4 November, 1979, radical Islamist students stormed the US embassy in Tehran taking 66 hostages. They hoped to exchange the hostages for the Shah of Iran, who'd recently fled his country to the USA. In the end, the students kept nearly all their captives for 444 days.Guests of the Ayatollah is told through the eyes of key players: the captors, the captives, diplomats on both sides trying to end the stand-off and the US soldiers sent on the doomed rescue mission.Episode One, Takeover, covers the first two days of the crisis, revealing how the hostages were taken, the background to the event, the eventual support given by the students' revered leader Imam Ayatollah Khomeini, and the subsequent resignation of the Iranian government."We could hear them kicking in doors. They were taking people hostage, leading Americans across the street with their hands on top of their heads. Seven or eight of these guys came bustling in. Once guy put his hand on his pistol and said 'put your hands up'. That's how the whole ordeal started," explains one US marine. "Our goal was only to voice an objection but when people surrounded the embassy in support of the students and the Imam got involved, everything changed. From a student movement it turned into a mission, assigned to us by society," says one hostage-taker.Episodes Two, Three and Four (Captivity, Rescue Mission and End Game) follow the dramatic developments as they unfold in the media circus outside the US Embassy and behind the scenes within the Carter administration, as it ran out of options. The result was the failed and deadly rescue mission, told through the eyes of special military forces (who've rarely been willing to speak on camera) and supplemented by newly-declassified information. Finally, Guests of the Ayatollah reveals where all the key participants are now, and how the hostage crisis continues to affect relations between Iran and the West today. (From the US, in English and Farsi, English subtitles) (Documentary Series) (Part 1 of 4)
Event Broadcast 2010-01-07 at 13:30:00
Notes Classification: PG
Subject Diplomatic relations.
Embassy takeovers.
International relations -- Historiography.
Iran Hostage Crisis (1979-1981)
Khomeini, Ruhollah.
Protest movements.
Iran -- Tehran.
United States.
Form Streaming video
Author Alavitabar, Alireza, contributor
Asgharzadeh, Ibrahim, contributor
Bowden, Mark, contributor
Daugherty, William, contributor
Golacinski, Alan, contributor
Keane, David, director
Kinzer, Stephen, contributor
Kirtley, Steven, contributor
Kupke, Fredrick, contributor
Laingen, L. Bruce, contributor
Limbert, John, contributor
Metrinko, Michael, contributor
Naimipoor, Mohammad, contributor
Rajaeefar, Farouz, contributor
Roeder, David, contributor
Shariatmadari, Hossein, contributor
Tomseth, Victor, contributor
Yazdi, Ibrahim, contributor