Every Monday night at 10 o'clock, Iranians by the
millions tune into Channel One to watch the most
expensive show ever aired on the Islamic republic's
state-owned television. Its elaborate 1940s costumes
and European locations are a far cry from the typicalIranian TV fare of scarf-clad women and gray-suited men.
But the most surprising thing about the wildly popular show is that it is a heart-wrenching tale of European Jews during World War II.
The hour-long drama, "Zero Degree Turn," centers on a love story between an Iranian-Palestinian Muslim man and a French Jewish woman. Over the course of the 22 episodes, the hero saves his love from Nazi detention camps, and Iranian diplomats in France forge passports for the woman and her family to sneak on to airplanes carrying Iranian Jews to their homeland.
Shahab Husseini stars in 'Zero Degree Turn.'
On the surface, the message of the lavish,
state-funded production appears sharply at odds with that sent out by Iranian President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad, who has repeatedly called the Holocaust a myth.
In fact, the government's spending on the show
underscores the subtle and often sophisticated way in which the Iranian state uses its TV empire to send out political messages. The aim of the show, according to many inside and outside the country, is to draw a clear distinction between the government's views about Judaism -- which is accepted across Iranian society --
and its stance on Israel -- which the leadership
denounces every chance it gets.
"Iranians have always differentiated between ordinary Jews and a minority of Zionists," says Hassan Fatthi, the show's writer and director. "The murder of innocent Jews during World War II is just as despicable, sad and shocking as the killing of
innocent Palestinian women and children by racist
Zionist soldiers," he says.
Mr. Fatthi, 48 years old, is a well-known director of
historical fiction for television. In the past, his
work has focused on Iranian history. But he also
dabbles in comedy, winning international critical
acclaim two years ago for a hit feature, "Marriage,
Iranian Style."
He says he came up with the idea for "Zero Degree
Turn" four years ago as he was reading books about
World War II and stumbled across literature about
charge d'affaires at the Iranian embassy in Paris.
Abdol Hussein Sardari saved over a thousand European Jews by forging Iranian passports and claiming they belonged to an Iranian tribe.
• Official site for "Zero Degree Turn."Mr. Fatthi
says he chose the title because the world at the time
was in dire circumstances, offering few options for
avoiding the terrors to come. Shot on location in
Paris and Budapest, the show stars Iranian heartthrob Shahab Husseini and is so popular that its theme song -- an ode to getting lost in love -- is a hit, too.
"It's captivating. No matter where I am or what I'm
doing, on Monday nights I find a television set and
watch the show. So does every Jewish person I know
here," says Morris Motamed, the lone Jew in
parliament.
Mr. Fatthi enlisted the help of Iran's Jewish
Association, an independent body that safeguards the community's culture and heritage. The association has criticized Mr. Ahmadinejad's comments about the Holocaust but has praised Mr. Fatthi's show.
Iran is home to some 25,000 Jews, the largest
population in the Middle East outside of Israel.
Iran's Jews -- along with Christians and Zorastrians
-- are guaranteed equal rights in the country's
constitution. Iran's Jews are guaranteed one member of parliament and are free to study Hebrew in school, pray in synagogues and shop at kosher supermarkets. Despite Mr. Ahmadinejad's statements, it isn't government policy to question the Holocaust, and the country's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, hasn't endorsed those views.
While Iran makes it no secret that it considers Israel
an enemy, it has been extremely touchy about criticism of its treatment of Jewish citizens. The show is seen as an effort by the government to erase the image that it may be anti-Semitic -- both at home among Jews and non-Jews, and abroad.
"In this show, you notice that a new method of
political dialogue is being promoted that is more in
line with the modern world," says Mohammad Ali Abtahi, a reformist cleric and former Iranian vice president.
The message appears to be grabbing the public. Sara
Khatibi, a 35-year-old mother and chemist in Tehran, says she and her husband never miss an episode. "All we ever hear about Jews is rants from the government about Israel," she says. "This is the first time we are seeing another side of the story and learning about their plight."
The show also pushes Iran's political line regarding
the legitimacy of Israel: The Jewish state was
conceived in modern times by Western powers rather than as part of a centuries-old desire of Jews for a return to their ancestral homeland. In one scene, a rabbi declares it a bad idea for Jews to resettle in Arab lands. In another, the French Jewish protagonist refuses a marriage offer by a cousin, who is advocating the creation of Israel.
Iran has long used TV to shape public opinion, where newspapers and the Internet are seen as media for the elite. The state's control over radio and television is enshrined in the constitution. Ayatollah Khamenei, the supreme leader, is not only head of the armed forces and the judiciary, but also the national broadcast authority.
"The regime appreciates the fact that to appeal to the
masses, both in Iran and the Muslim world, television is the most important outlet," says Karim Sadjadpour, an expert on Iran at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington.
On any given day, the country's seven state-run
channels broadcast a mostly drab offering of news,
sports, cooking shows, soap operas and religious
sermons. Political propaganda is constantly fed into
the mix. Dissidents such as students or reformers are routinely paraded before cameras to read confessions after stints of solitary imprisonment.
A slick documentary-style program recently aired long interviews with two Iranian-Americans who were detained on allegations of working to overthrow the regime. The interviews -- in which the pair blandly admitted to meeting with Iranian scholars and dissidents, but not to attempting to topple the government -- were intercut with provocative scenes of demonstrations in Ukraine, where the U.S. encouraged groups that eventually staged the successful Orange Revolution in late 2004.
In July, Iran launched a 24-hour English-language
satellite news channel called Press TV, joining the
ranks of the BBC, CNN and Al Jazeera. Its Arabic news channel, Al Alam, has been broadcasting news with an Iranian slant in the Arab world for several years.
Episodes of "Zero Degree Turn," broadcast in Farsi,
can be seen outside of Iran on the Internet, either
streaming live or downloaded at
tv1.irib.r1/barnameha/sharhefilm.asp?code=0011109036106
It is also broadcast with English subtitles on the state-controlled Jameh Jam satellite channel, which is available on Europe's Hot Bird satellite network. Mr. Fatthi also says Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting has been contacted about selling the show to networks in other countries, but he doesn't know which ones. Write to Farnaz Fassihi at farnaz.fassihi@wsj.com
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