Exiled prince Reza Pahlavi honours those killed in protests, urges unity
Iran's exiled prince Reza Pahlavi praised protesters across Iran and honoured those killed in recent demonstrations, calling them “true heroes of this land” and urging Iranians to remain united until what he described as the country’s freedom.
In a message posted on X, Pahlavi saluted demonstrators “standing courageously across Iran,” listing provinces from Lorestan and Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari to Tehran, Khorasan and Hormozgan. “You are making history – history written by the courage, solidarity, and determination of a nation reclaiming its country,” he wrote.
Referring to those killed over the past two days, he said: “Their names and memories will live forever in our national conscience.” Pahlavi called on Iranians to honour them nationwide and abroad “so that we show their path and their purpose are shared by all of us.”
He ended with a call for perseverance: “Stay united. Stay focused on the goal. Victory will be ours.”
Looking back at Iranian films in 2025, one fact is hard to miss: it was underground cinema—not the country’s officially sanctioned productions—that defined the year internationally.
Independent Iranian films, made without permits and often in open defiance of compulsory hijab rules, dominated major festivals and prize lists.
The clearest signal came at Cannes, where the Palme d’Or crowned an underground Iranian production, sealing 2025 as an exceptional year for dissident cinema.
By contrast, Iran’s official films—produced with licences and strict ideological constraints—largely failed to gain traction abroad.
The standout was A Simple Accident by Jafar Panahi, which not only won the Palme d’Or but went on to become one of the most prominent titles of the global awards season, with realistic prospects at the Oscars and Golden Globes.
Youth, society and refusal
Many of the year’s most striking films explored Iranian society through the eyes of a younger generation increasingly at odds with official norms.
Sunshine Express by Amir-Ali Navaei, screened in the main competition at the International Film Festival Rotterdam, rejected conventional storytelling in favour of a disquieting, abstract journey that mirrors the layered complexity of contemporary Iran.
Also at Rotterdam, Jamaat by Sahand Kabiri, shown in the “Bright Future” section, sought to reclaim parts of Iran’s social history long absent from official cinema, offering an unvarnished portrait of a generation that openly rejects prescribed rules.
Berlin hosted A Thousand and One Frames by Mehrnoush Alia, an underground film made inside Iran featuring women without compulsory hijab. Its freer visual space aligns with its themes, even as such work risks being weaponised by hardliners who have long labelled Iranian cinema “corrupt”—a charge historically used to justify censorship and control.
Venice screened two underground social films: Divine Comedy by Ali Asgari, which uses subtle humour to depict the frustrations of filmmaking under censorship, and Inside Amir by Amir Azizi, a portrait of Tehran’s underground life.
A scene from Jafar Panahi's Palm D'Or winner A Simple Accident
Tehran on screen
Several films offered stark depictions of Tehran today.
Bidad by Soheil Beiraghi won the Special Jury Prize at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival. It follows Sati, a Gen Z woman barred from singing publicly, who ultimately takes to the streets—turning personal defiance into a metaphor for a generation demanding its rights in public space.
Ali Behrad’s Tehran, Be With You, also screened at Karlovy Vary, presents an uncompromising portrait of young life in the capital and remains banned inside Iran.
Duality by Abbas Nezam-Doost (Tallinn) and Between Dream and Hope by Farnoush Samadi (Toronto) similarly set out to document everyday life in contemporary Tehran from different angles.
Experimentation and exile
Formal experimentation also marked the year. Shahram Mokri’s Black Rabbit, White Rabbit, shot in Tajikistan, sidesteps Iran’s restrictions and extends his signature style of long takes, interlocking narratives and circular storytelling.
Ali Farahmand’s debut Only the Voice Remains, screened in Beijing, is a black-and-white, dialogue-free work dense with cinematic references.
Filmmakers in exile were equally visible. Abdolreza Kahani’s The Mortician, shot on a mobile phone, stood out at the Edinburgh festival, following an Iranian mortician in Canada with ambiguous ties to the Iranian embassy.
Depth of Night by Farhad Vilkiji revisited Iran’s chain murders, while Sepideh Farsi screened her documentary Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk on Palestine at Cannes.
Fatima Hassouna in Sepdieh Farsani's documentary about life in Gaza during Israeli military campaign
Memory and documentary
Themes of revolution and memory surfaced in Ah, What Happy Days They Were by Homayoun Ghanizadeh, premiered in Tallinn, which brings together Ali Nassirian, Navid Mohammadzadeh, Peyman Maadi, Golshifteh Farahani and Shirin Neshat in a fragmented conversation linking family history to revolution.
Documentary cinema also fared strongly. Saeed Nouri’s Tehran: An Unfinished History, assembled from pre-revolutionary films, screened at Rotterdam.
Mehrdad Oskouei won best film at IDFA for The Moon and the Pink Fox, about an Afghan girl in Iran seeking to reach Europe, while The Past Is a Continuous Future by Firoozeh Khosravani also received an IDFA prize.
Together, these films offered a portrait of Iranian cinema in 2025 that was defiant, experimental and overwhelmingly shaped by voices working beyond the state’s boundaries.
Iran’s official defense export agency is offering to sell ballistic missiles, drones and other advanced weapons systems to foreign governments in exchange for cryptocurrency and barter, Financial Times reported on Thursday.
The Ministry of Defence Export Center, known as Mindex, presents itself as the export arm of Iran’s defense ministry. It advertises more than 3,000 products across categories including armaments, rockets and missiles, aviation, marine platforms, and radar and optical systems.
The portal’s payment terms say contracts can be settled using “digital currencies,” local currencies in the buyer’s country and barter arrangements, alongside more traditional bank transfers.
Mindex’s online platform, hosted on an Iranian cloud provider already blacklisted by Washington, says decades of experience in overseas sales and says it works with a number of foreign clients.
A frequently asked questions section reassures potential buyers that “given the general policies of the Islamic Republic of Iran regarding circumvention of sanctions, there is no problem in implementing the contract,” and promises that purchased products will reach their destination “as soon as possible,” FT reported.
According to the center’s own “About us” page, Mindex began its marketing activity in 1989 and is “affiliated to the Ministry of Defence and Armed Forces Logistics,” (MODAFL) a ministry that has been under US sanctions since 2007 for supporting Iran’s missile and conventional arms programs.
Washington has repeatedly targeted MODAFL‑linked front companies and procurement networks, warning that foreign entities supplying or buying military hardware through such channels risk secondary sanctions and potential exclusion from the US financial system.
Recent US designations have also singled out Iran‑linked “shadow banking” and crypto networks accused of helping Tehran move money for oil and weapons sales outside formal banking channels, underscoring the risks for buyers using digital assets to pay Mindex.
US Treasury in recent months has sanctioned multiple Iran‑linked networks accused of using front companies and alternative payment channels to facilitate weapons transfers to partners such as Russia and Venezuela, warning that digital currencies do not shield transactions from enforcement.
State Department says the latest protests in Iran are an expression of the people’s 'understandable anger' at their government’s failures, a US official told Iran International.
“The protests reflect the understandable anger of the Iranian people at their government's failures and excuses,” the official said in a written statement on Thursday.
The statement said Tehran has neglected the country’s economy, agriculture, water, and electricity “for decades” in order to “squander billions on terrorist proxies and nuclear weapons research,” while also carrying out acts of "terrorism against the United States and its allies."
