2008 / Documentary, 92 min / Iran – the Netherlands

For A People in the Shadows, an impressionistic and contrasting portrait of the Iranian capital, Khoshnoudi submerged herself in the city… From this megalopolis of 14 million people… she gives us a fragmented vision, respectful of its diversity. Behind images that are traditionally propagated by the regime…little by little, she brings another reality to the surface… Many gaps that open up in a wall of prohibitions of all sorts.

Télérama

“A People in the Shadows… with its explicit title, goes against the clichés that the media propagates about Iranian society… Bani Khoshnoudi brings out multiple signs of modernity that coexist with figures that are imposed by the Iranian regime… In brief, an Iran never before seen by Western audiences…”

Politis

Almost thirty years after the revolution, and twenty since the end of the long Iran-Iraq war, A People in the Shadows takes us on a voyage into the heart of Tehran, a megalopolis of 14 million people. The city is still recovering from its past, as talk of sanctions and a possible American attack resonate. Using direct cinema methods, the film takes an intimate look at the way people live in this immense city today, caught up in the paradoxes and contradictions of their society, surrounded by images of past and future death, yet finding ways to juggle state propaganda and foreign threat on a daily basis.

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