Hero Ken Taylor and others shed exciting new insight on the Canadian Caper in OUR MAN IN TEHRAN
OUR MAN IN TEHRAN (Drew Taylor & Larry Weinstein, 2014)
Cinema Village
22 East 12th St. between University Pl. & Fifth Ave.
Opens Friday, May 15
212-924-3363
www.cinemavillage.com
firstrunfeatures.com
In 1979, Iranian protestors took fifty-four American embassy personnel hostage. However, six diplomats managed to escape, secretly protected by Canadian embassy official John Sheardown and Ambassador Ken Taylor. Producer-directors Drew Taylor (no relation to Ken) and Larry Weinstein take viewers behind the scenes of what became known as the Canadian Caper in Our Man in Tehran, the real tale that lay behind Ben Affleck’s Oscar-winning thriller, Argo. Based on Robert Wright’s 2011 book Our Man in Tehran, which boasts the rather lengthy and explanatory subtitle The True Story Behind the Secret Mission to Save Six Americans during the Iran Hostage Crisis & the Foreign Ambassador Who Worked w/the CIA to Bring Them Home, the documentary combines archival footage of the Shah of Iran, the Ayatollah Khomeini, President Jimmy Carter, and Iranian protests along with new interviews with the heroic and engaging Ken Taylor and his wife, Pat (who were played by Victor Garber and Page Leong in Argo), the soft-spoken former CIA operative Tony Mendez (who was portrayed by Affleck), foreign correspondent Joe Schlesinger, Canadian embassy worker Roger Lucy, historian Mohamad Tavakoli, CBC journalist Carole Jerome, hostages Kathleen Stafford, Mark Lijek, Cora Amburn-Lijek, and Bob Anders, U.S. National Security adviser Gary Sick, Canadian prime minister Joe Clark, Zena Sheardown (wife of the late Joe Sheardown), and others, providing fresh insight and fascinating details about the capture and eventual escape. Even though you know what happens in the end, it’s still exciting to hear the story all over again, and it’s especially fun watching Ken Taylor, who has a wry sense of humor and fantastic curly white hair. Our Man in Tehran opens May 15 at Cinema Village, with Ken and Pat Taylor, Drew Taylor, and former Canadian ambassador to Iran Elena Semikina on hand for a Q&A following the 9:10 screening Friday night.
At the beginning of Know How, graffiti-style words announce, over shots of the Manhattan skyline at night, “We are a group of foster care youth. We came together to change our lives and communities. We wrote and performed a musical based on our lives. We adapted our musical into this film.” Now, before you stop reading this because you figure this will be a self-serving, melodramatic vanity project made by a bunch of kids extolling a social cause, you need to understand something: Know How is a gripping little gem, a smart portrayal of the based-on-fact real-life problems experienced by underserved minority youth in New York’s foster-care system. The film, written (with the five main actors) and directed by Juan Carlos Piñeiro Escoriaza (Second Skin), follows Addie (Niquana Clark), Marie (Ebonee Simpson), Megan (Claribelle Pagan), Eva (Gabrielle Garcia), and Austin (Gilbert Howard) as they deal with sexual abuse, crime, drugs and alcohol, bullying, death, treatment centers, education, and the Administration for Children’s Services. They have battles with parents, grandparents, teachers, administrators, police, and lovers, facing turning points that will change their futures forever, from choosing to steal to trying to get into college. Made in conjunction with 
Masako Kobayashi’s ten-hour epic, The Human Condition, based on a popular novel by Jumpei Gomikawa, is one of the most stunning achievements ever captured on film, and you can catch it all this weekend at the Museum of the Moving Image. Shot over the course of three years, the film follows one man’s harrowing struggle to never give up his humanity as he is dragged deeper and deeper into the morass of WWII. Tatsuya Nakadai is remarkable as Kaji, a man who believes in common decency, personal discipline, and, above all else, that humanity will always triumph. In the first part, No Greater Love, the steadfastly practical Kaji is hesitant to marry his sweetheart, Michiko (Michiyo Aratama), for fear that he will be called to serve in the Japanese army and might not come back to her alive. But when his detailed plan to treat workers fairly is accepted by the government, he is made labor supervisor of a mine in far-off Southern Manchuria, where hundreds of Chinese prisoners are brought in as well — and regularly starved, beaten, and, on occasion, brutally killed in cold blood. Kaji’s methods, which have close ties to communism, leading many to refer to him as a “Red,” anger both sides — the Japanese want to treat the workers like animals, and the Chinese prisoners don’t trust that he has their welfare in mind. A series of escape attempts threatens the stability of the labor camp and comes between Kaji and Michiko, whose undying love is echoed in the yearning, unfulfilled desire between a Korean prisoner and a Japanese prostitute. Broken promises, lies, and betrayal reach a tense conclusion that sets the stage for the second part of Kobayashi’s masterpiece.
