Rehearsals for a Revolution: A Family Memoir of Iran, Made Under Guilt

Pegah Ahangarani's Rehearsals for a Revolution screened at the 2026 AFI Fest and opens on January 8, following a December awards-qualifying run. The film filters Iran's recent history through the memories of the filmmaker's own family. It succeeds most when the history stays intimate. It falters when it turns inward.

The film opens with Ahangarani's father. He fought in the revolution and grew disillusioned with its leadership once it took power. Ahangarani characterizes him almost entirely through the eyes of the child she was. Her narration idolizes him, repeating how great a soldier he was. Legend has it, she narrates, that Saddam Hussein personally offered Iran prized military equipment for her father — an offer Iran refused. Ahangarani does not interrogate the myth. She leaves it for the audience. Having made a previous documentary short about her father, she weaves his chapter with confidence.

What follows the father's chapter?

The later chapters never reach that first height. A story about a schoolteacher Ahangarani idolized compels on its own terms but sits oddly disconnected from the surrounding narrative. We then learn her mother was a prominent film director in Iran, which gave the young Ahangarani access to film sets and acting.

A fourth-wall break precedes the film's most reflective stretch. Ahangarani admits she hesitated to include a chapter on her uncle Rashid because only three photographs and 22 seconds of Super 8mm film survived. That scarcity becomes the film's strength. Worn photographs and grainy footage supply a palpable texture. The sound design reinforces it: the mechanical whirrs of VHS tapes and film reels grant the archival material a physical presence. At one point, her father swears Khomeini looked directly at him at a parade. A freeze-frame reveals a face just grainy enough to neither confirm nor deny the tall tale.

The contrast sharpens as the film reaches the present. iPhone footage of recent protests carries a digital sheen that shifts the memory-based storytelling into something immediate and less elusive.

What does the film say about showing atrocity?

The final act begins with Ahangarani staring at a blank Adobe Premiere screen, uneasy about reviewing footage of the deadly protests of early 2026. Her narration ponders the ethics of showing the massacre of her fellow Iranians, especially given her guilt over leaving Iran years earlier. She scrolls through thumbnails ominously blurred. Brief shots appear, one showing rows of body bags. She never lingers.

The film positions itself in a long debate: Claude Lanzmann's reluctance to use Holocaust archival footage against Georges Didi-Huberman's defense of its historical importance. Onscreen text cites a death toll of 6,000, acknowledging how hard an accurate figure is to establish under a totalitarian regime. Footage cannot relay the full extent of what happened. It can make the violence harder to ignore.

The same text notes the subsequent joint American-Israeli attack on Iran in 2026. The film never explicitly connects the two events, yet their proximity implies a relationship it declines to interrogate.

Where does the film sit in the current wave?

Alongside You Can See Everything and Possible Love, Ahangarani's film joins a growing wave of directors examining the ethics and limitations of documentary cinema. The verdict here is split. Rehearsals for a Revolution is most effective when Iran's history passes through family stories — the father, the uncle, the grainy frames. It becomes less convincing when Ahangarani's own feelings about exile take center stage. The January 8 theatrical release will test whether audiences agree.