Following Breaking Ranks: Inside Israel’s Army, Zandland and ITV have produced a new documentary examining the human and geopolitical dimensions of the recent Iranian uprising and the conflict that followed.
Inside Iran: War & Revolution gained unprecedented access to people living in one of the world’s most closed-off authoritarian regimes.
Directed by British-Iranian filmmaker Ben Zand, the film features exclusive interviews with grieving families, ordinary citizens and journalists, many speaking to western media for the first time. At a time when simply sending a short video out of the country carries the risk of execution, many of these individuals speak under strict anonymity to protect their identities from severe state reprisals.
The film is told from the perspective of an anonymous Iranian journalist.
The interview testimonies describe the horrific realities of the January 2026 protests and the subsequent war, recounting allegations of indiscriminate state-sanctioned killings during mass demonstrations, nationwide internet blackouts, and the terror of being caught in the deadly crossfire of a domestic crackdown and relentless foreign bombardments.
The film, Zandland’s latest major production for ITV, seeks to answer the question of why many Iranians welcomed the military attack launched on their country by the US and Israel on 28 February. It pieces together a picture from inside Iran, capturing a resilient population pushed to the brink and raising vital questions about authoritarian control, international intervention, and the hidden realities of a nation shielded from public view.
Director and founder of Zandland, Ben Zand said: “What this film captures is an impossible situation, and the full range of what it does to the people living through it. Our contributors describe grief, fury, hope and heartbreak, often side by side, and rarely in the ways outside observers might expect. As a British-Iranian this is deeply personal to me, but the film belongs to the people inside Iran who risked everything to share their reality.”
ITV’s Controller of Current Affairs, Tom Giles, who commissioned the film said: “This is a powerful and significant piece of work by people who have taken great risks to film and bear witness to events which have commanded the world’s attention all year, and which they themselves have directly experienced. These are filmed voices we rarely hear from inside Iran: urgent, passionate, fearful and inspiring.”
Inside Iran: War & Revolution airs on Sunday 9th August on ITV1 and ITVX. It is a Zandland production for ITV. Ben Zand directs, Maya Rostowska is the Producer, and Josh Reynolds and Ben Zand are the Executive Producers.
Photo credit: Zandland
Pippa Considine
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