‘The Iran Job’ Mixes Basketball & Politics Into The Foundation For A Bridge To Iran
Posted in: Today's ChiliWith the drumbeat of war coursing through American politics once again, a curious little documentary titled “The Iran Job” appears to provide a would-be path toward diplomacy.
By following Kevin Sheppard, an American basketball player, to Iran’s Super League, we are exposed not only to Sheppard’s own inimitable curiosity but also to an Iranian public that is bursting with love for America. Sheppard is black and extremely tall, two features which prompt endearingly earnest reactions from the locals (“I love black people!” shouts one bazaar shop owner).
But the film is more than a string of cute cross-cultural anecdotes. The documentary was shot in 2009, the year President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was reelected amid mass suspicions of fraud. Protests spread throughout the country and were met with brutal force, particularly in Tehran. Sheppard, his now-close Iranian friends (including Elaheh, a charming woman who at one point seems to fall for the disarming basketballer) and the theater audience witness the birth of the Green Movement.
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