The Green Wave

Comprised of animation and actual footage, THE GREEN WAVE is a shocking documentary about the civilian uprising during the 2009 Iranian presidential election. Based solely on first-person accounts that director Ali Samadi Ahadi collected from tweets, Facebook entries, and blogs, the film stands as a potent testimony to a revolution against the cruelty and oppression of a regime intolerant of change. Ahadi ties together raw footage of protests and public gatherings – shot primarily by witnesses on cell phones – with poignant animation to illustrate the narratives of online bloggers. The film avoids explaining the differences in ideologies of the running politicians Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Mir-Hossein Mousavi. Instead it exists to show the horrid and devastating human rights violations committed against young, educated voters who demand change. When protests broke out in the streets of Iran after the exposure of the fraudulent election, the state militia responded with brutal violence and hauled many of the protestors to jail – all fully sanctioned by Iran's government and religious leaders. Now Ahadi tells these victims' influential and significant stories of THE GREEN WAVE to convey the outrageous injustice perpetrated by the Iranian government and to remind us of the many political prisoners still locked away and silenced. (In German and Persian with subtitles) – M.M.