A soon-to-be-released Iranian animated film depicts Tehran’s victory over U.S. naval forces in an imagined military conflict between the two nations as President Donald Trump adopts a hard line against the Gulf country.
The movie was titled “Battle of Persian Gulf II” and directed by Iranian filmmaker Farhad Azima, who said it took four years to create the 88-minute piece. The film opened with a U.S. attack on an Iranian nuclear reactor and other strategic locations, drawing a massive retaliation by Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards that rained missiles down on invading warships. While the film was made during a relative warming of relations between Washington and Tehran under former President Barack Obama, Azima noted the appropriate timing of its late-February release date, during what he called a “warmongering” U.S. administration.
“I hope that the film shows Trump how American soldiers will face a humiliating defeat if they attack Iran,” the director told Reuters in a telephone interview published Wednesday, later adding, “They all sink and the film ends as the American ships have turned into an aquarium for fishes at the bottom of the sea.”
The film featured a likeness of the Revolutionary Guards’ Quds Force leader Qassem Soleimani commanding the defensive operation against U.S. forces. In one scene, a missile tore through a U.S. flag mounted on a Navy boat before striking its target. “When you enter hell, tell them ‘Qassem sent me,'” an animation of the influential military official uttered in the film’s trailer. Azima said he reached out to Soleimani to obtain permission for his image, but did not receive a response. Sources close to Soleimani, however, reportedly asked the director to drop the name “Qassem” in the final copy.
A picture taken from animated film “Battle of Persian Gulf II” depicts an armed confrontation between Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and the U.S. Navy. Photo: Reuters
The news came as Trump met Wednesday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has long called for Washington to adopt a stricter stance against Tehran. Both Trump and Netanyahu were critics of Obama’s 2015 nuclear deal with Iran and Trump has suggested he may renegotiate the multilateral treaty. Iranian officials, including President Hassan Rouhani, have maintained that the deal must stay as is. Last month, Trump responded to Iran’s ballistic missile tests by putting Iran “on notice,” something Rouhani said Iran would “make him regret.”
Azima said he hoped his film would counter depictions of U.S. military might against Iran in Hollywood films and video games, which he called “propaganda.” The filmmaker said his team at Fatima Zahra Animation Studios was small and received no funding from the government or the Revolutionary Guards in creating the movie. He praised his animation team, who he said worked “for their beliefs and their love of the country” rather than financial gain.
Azima previously produced “Rachel Corrie Message 2: The Point of No Return,” an animation named after a U.S. pro-Palestinian activist who was run over and killed by Israeli military bulldozers as she attempted to block the demolition of Palestinian homes. The film depicts a fictional Iranian conquest of Jerusalem, according to Sputnik Persian. Iran has also portrayed military conflicts in video games such as “Missile Strike” and “Attack on Tel-Aviv,” which developers maintain are answers to U.S.-centric narratives present in titles such as Call of Duty and Battlefield massively popular worldwide.
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