Green Days

The protagonist of Green Days is a young Iranian theatre director called Ava, who suffers from depression. At a time when she is trying hard through therapy to understand herself and the world around her, her hometown of Teheran is submerged in green. During pre-election demonstrations, hundreds of thousands of supporters of the presidential candidate Mir-Hossein Mousavi take to the streets, and the green colour of their flags symbolises their long-awaited hope that Mousavi will triumph in the election over the dictator Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Ava also finds herself caught up in the wave of euphoria, and through spontaneous interviews with Mousavi's followers, the film takes a very open look at an opposition movement imbued with optimism. Just a few days after the rigged elections, however, these pictures are replaced by footage from small cameras and mobile phones recording the brutality of the Iranian police, which had already claimed hundreds of victims and which is indicative of the insecurity of the regime and its determination to use every means at its disposal to stay in power. This film deals with a highly topical theme, and it documents events that are among the worst examples of the alarming suppression of democratic principles in recent years.