Tehran, An Unfinished History

Tehran, An Unfinished History, directed by Saaed Nouri, is an essayistic documentary built entirely from found footage that reconstructs a lost century of Tehran’s urban and cinematic transformation. Drawing on rarely seen material from Iran’s national film archives, the film assembles over 150 archival clips to reveal a city of sharp contrasts: cosmopolitan modernity alongside profound social divisions, visibility alongside repression. 

Pre-revolutionary Iranian cinema emerges as a crucial historical witness, capturing a Tehran whose images, gestures, and aspirations have largely vanished from public memory. Rather than offering a linear historical account, Nouri reconfigures archival fragments to expose history as incomplete, contested, and continuously rewritten. Through the sociopolitical shifts of the capital, the film reconstructs a national past, positioning cinema itself as a site of memory, loss, and unresolved political imagination. 

Director: Saaed Nouri. Countries: Iran. Released: 2025. Length: 105 min. Format: DCP. Language: Farsi with English subtitles. Cast: Mohammad Ali Fardin, Naser Malek Motie, Behrouz Vosoughi, Nosrat Vahdat, Majid Mohseni, Manouchehr Vosough, Parviz Sayyad, Shahla Riahi, Googoosh, Pouri Baanaei, Forouzan, Katayoun, Mahin Deyhim, Farzan Deljou, Taghi Zohouri, Nouri Kasraei.