ARUSI PERSIAN WEDDING chronicles Tehrani’s brother’s journey to Iran, their father’s birthplace, as he travels with his American wife to hold a traditional Persian wedding ceremony and explore his lost heritage. Weaving the young couple’s personal story with historical footage that illuminates the complex history of America’s relationship with Iran, ARUSI PERSIAN WEDDING goes behind the curtain of political tension to offer a rare glimpse of both modern and traditional Iran.

Born in America and raised by their Iranian father and American Jewish mother, Tehrani and her brother, Alex, grew up during the Iranian Islamic Revolution, when the Shah was expelled and anti-American sentiment exploded, resulting in the infamous hostage crisis of 1979 and setting in motion decades of miscommunication, threats and vitriol between the American and Iranian governments. With a foot in each culture, Marjan and Alex grew up feeling alienated from both cultures, not really at home in either. Through this very personal story, ARUSI PERSIAN WEDDING explores the complex and troubled relationship between America, the country of Marjan and Alex’s birth, and Iran, the country of their heritage.

ARUSI PERSIAN WEDDING will have its broadcast premiere on Tuesday, March 17, 2009, at 10 PM (check local listings) as part of the PBS series Independent Lens, hosted by Terrence Howard.

Followed by a discussion with director Marjan Tehrani and moderated by Debbie Zimmerman (Executive Director, Women Make Movies).

Marjan Tehrani is an independent director and producer from Berkeley, California. She founded the production company Tru Films and has since directed and produced Her Israel, which premiered on the Sundance Channel in 2004, and ARUSI PERSIAN WEDDING. In addition, she is currently producing P Star’s Redemption, a feature documentary that follows a 13-year-old female rap star phenomenon as she fulfills her father’s deferred dreams of making it in the music business. Beyond her independent work, Tehrani has produced several original series for television, including dLIFE TV for CNBC and the Emmy®-nominated After School for PBS, which featured celebrity alumni such as Harvey Keitel and Tim Robbins returning to their urban high schools as role models. Through Tru Films, Tehrani is dedicated to promoting dialogue between cultures, sharing the intricate and subtle aspects of identity, and capturing the transformative moments of the human experience.

Debra Zimmerman has been the Executive Director of Women Make Movies, a non-profit NY based film organization which supports women filmmakers, since 1983. During her tenure it has grown into the largest distributor of films by and about women in the world. Films from WMM have won prizes at the last three Sundance Film Festivals including this year’s Best Documentary World Cinema prize for Rough Aunties and last year’s The Greatest Silence: Rape in the Congo. She is in great demand around the world as a speaker on independent film distribution, marketing and financing as well as on women's film. She has moderated panels and given master classes at the Sundance Film Festival, MIPDOC and Reel Screen as well as film festivals in Europe, Africa, Asia and South America. Zimmerman has been closely affiliated with the International Documentary Film Festival (IDFA) as the co-host of the Talk of the Day and as a tutor for their Summer Film Academy. In addition, she has mentored filmmakers at the Ex-Oriente Film Workshop in Vienna and for many years at the National Alliance of Latino Independent Producers’ (NALIP) Academy. She has consulted with foundations and non-profit arts organizations, most recently as a member of the Gender Montage Advisory Board project for the Open Society Institute. She is also a member of numerous Advisory Boards for media and film organizations, including the Australian International Documentary Conference (AIDC); the True/False Film Festival; Cinema Tropical, NY; Arts Afrika, Kenya and the International Female Film Festival Malmo, Sweden. She has also been a jury member for many international film festivals, and regularly sits on foundation and government funding panels.