NIAC DocuNight #37
Date and Time
May 2, 2017 6:00 pm
Location
14th & V
2021 14th St NW, Washington, District of Columbia, 20009
May 2, 2017 6:00 pm
14th & V
Busboys and Poets welcomes The National Iranian American Council to the Langston room for their monthly Docunight. These events are open to the public. $10 admission. Follow this link for more details. For tickets go here.
This Month:
Decadence and Downfall: The Shah of Iran's Ultimate Party
Directed by Hassan Amini
2016 / 75 min
English / Persian with English Subtitles
In 1971, the Shah of Iran, the self-proclaimed 'king of kings', celebrated 2,500 years of the Persian monarchy by throwing the greatest party in history. Money was no object - a lavish tent city, using 37km of silk, was erected in a specially created oasis. The world's top restaurant at the time, Maxim's, closed its doors for two weeks to cater the event, a five-course banquet served to over sixty of the world's kings, queens and presidents, and washed down with some of the rarest wines known to man. Over a decadent five-day period, guests were treated to a pageant of thousands of soldiers dressed in ancient Persian costume, a 'son et Lumiere' at the foot of Darius the Great's temple, and the opening of the Azadi Tower in Tehran, designed to honor the Shah himself. Every party leaves a few hangovers. This one left a country reeling, never to recover. It crystallized the opposition, led by the Ayatollah Khomeini. More than any other event, this party marked the break between the king of kings and the people of Iran he reigned over.
