Iranian Diaspora Filmmakers Celebrate Khameneis Death: Everybody Is Extremely Happy the Dictator Is Dead
Iran‘s large community of diaspora filmmakers has broadly come out in support of the U.S.-led attacks that resulted in the killing, on Saturday, of Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. In public statements and across social media, Iranian filmmakers are celebrating Khamenei’s death and the international intervention they see as striking a blow against Tehran’s…
Iran‘s large community of diaspora filmmakers has broadly come out in support of the U.S.-led attacks that resulted in the killing, on Saturday, of Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
In public statements and across social media, Iranian filmmakers are celebrating Khamenei’s death and the international intervention they see as striking a blow against Tehran’s theocracy.
“Everybody is extremely happy the dictator is dead,” said Mahshid Zamani, a film critic and member of the Independent Iranian Filmmakers Association, based in L.A. “That’s overshadowing all other reactions at this point, though people are concerned about what happens next.”
Oscar-nominated Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof (The Seed of the Sacred Fig), who now lives in Germany, posted an image of Khamenei to his Instagram account on Sunday with the text (in English): “He is undoubtedly the most hated figure in contemporary Iranian history.” In a subsequent post, he expressed hope of political change in Iran. Writing that the people of Iran want “the right to determine their own destiny,” he noted that this desire for political change “can no longer be suppressed.”
Posting to Instagram, Nima Sarvestani, a Swedish-Iranian documentarian whose latest film, Survivors of the Death Corridor, examines the legacy of political executions in Iran, wrote that the “47-year nightmare” of the Iranian regime “has not yet fully ended, but light is slowly entering the frame. With the removal of Khamenei and the dismantling of part of his inner circle, a dark chapter is drawing close to its final shot.”
Following the news of Khamenei’s death, anti-regime expatriates in cities across Europe and North America staged rallies and celebrations, waving pre-1979 Iranian flags and voicing hopes that Khamenei’s death could accelerate political change in Tehran. At the same time, smaller pro-government demonstrations emerged in parts of the United States and elsewhere, condemning the military strikes and expressing solidarity with Iran’s leadership.
Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, Zamani said Iran’s diaspora has long called for international intervention to help topple the Iranian regime. She points to a Jan. 10 open letter from Shirin Ebadi, the Iranian human rights activist and Nobel Peace Prize laureate and signed by acclaimed Iranian director Mohsen Makhmalbaf (A Moment of Innocence), calling on President Trump to “come to the aid of the Iranian people. Now is the time to act against the machinery of repression and prevent the continued killing of a people who seek dignity, justice and freedom.”
Some 200 Iranian filmmakers have put their names to another open letter condemning Tehran’s recent violent suppression of popular protests and calling out the regime’s “systematic corruption and the plundering of public wealth,” which “have driven people’s lives into the abyss of poverty, repression and despair.”
Zamani said that even amid the jubilation, fear hangs over the diaspora. “Every Iranian outside the country is worried about our families in Iran … everyone is worried every minute this war continues,” she said.
That anxiety is underscored by the rapidly expanding military campaign on the ground.
The U.S. and Israeli-led assault on Iran continued on Monday, with Pentagon officials warning the campaign is only in its early stages. Meanwhile, the conflict shows signs of spreading across the region. Iran has retaliated by launching explosive drones across the Persian Gulf, and Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah fired rockets from Lebanon into Israel, triggering retaliatory airstrikes on Beirut. Three American jets were downed in what the Pentagon called an apparent friendly-fire incident involving Kuwaiti air defenses, though the pilots ejected safely.
There have also been Iran-led strikes on oil and gas infrastructure in Saudi Arabia and Qatar, missile attacks near U.S. bases in Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates, and a shutdown of shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, all of which have rattled global energy markets and raised concerns about the economic fallout and broader regional conflagration.
Iran’s top security official, Ali Larijani, struck a defiant tone on Monday, calling out President Trump for what he said were “delusional fantasies” of regime change that have “plunged the region into chaos.” Iran, Larijani wrote on X “unlike the United States, has prepared itself for a long war.”
Speaking to The New York Times, President Donald Trump said the military action against Iran could continue for “four to five weeks.” General Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, declined to give a timeline for the conflict while acknowledging that further U.S. casualties were likely.
