Argo received eight Oscar nominations and has grossed over $166.4 million at the box office worldwide and now Iran wants in on the action. But don’t expect the Islamic Republic to toe the line of how events transpired in the version directed and starring Ben Affleck . [ Related: Iran A Possible Oscar No-Show After Boycott Threat AND Ben Affleck Goes For Gracious Post-Oscar Passover ] Iranian director Ataollah Salmanian an Iranian news agency that he is making a counter-feature to Affleck’s film which is based on the true story of a C.I.A. plan to rescue six Americans from Tehran during the outset of the Iran hostage crisis in 1979. Titled The General Staff , Salmanian told the news agency his film “should be an appropriate response to the ‘a-historic’ film Argo ,” according to BBC. Not surprisingly, Argo has ruffled feathers in the Iranian hierarchy and Salmanian is hoping to receive funding from the Middle Eastern country’s government. Iran has long had a contentious relationship with its filmmaking community even as its filmmakers won awards around the world. Last year Asghar Farhadi’s A Separation won the Academy Award for Best Foreign-Language film. Despite praise for the win at the time, the country’s establishment banned its filmmakers from submitting to the Oscars race officially due to the controversy surrounding the anti-Islam video that hit YouTube last year, Innocence of Muslims . Others have faced persecution and silence including celebrated director Jafar Panahi who served house arrest and later prison. The director documented his house-arrest in This Is Not a Film , which was smuggled out of Iran in a Flash-Drive and hidden inside a cake. It later screened at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival and other festivals. [ Source: The Guardian ] Follow Movieline on Twitter .
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Iran Planning Its Alterna-‘Argo’
