CFF: Celluloid Underground

Partners in crime: the film obsessive and the secret film collector. After the 1979 revolution in Iran, a boy grew up obsessed with the films he was no longer allowed to see under the new Islamic regime.

He watched forbidden movies any way he could and started running illegal film clubs. As a student, he met an underground film collector who had hidden thousands of 35mm prints from destruction by the regime.

That student became a leading film curator, now living in London. Here he looks back on an exciting and dangerous time that shaped the person he is today.

The Cambridge Film Festival is presented by the Cambridge Film Trust, a registered charity with a mission to foster film culture and education for the benefit of the public, in Cambridge, the Eastern region, and throughout the UK.