THE SANCTIONS HOTEL
48’/60’/90’
The ’Sanctions Hotel’ is a character led observational documentary filmed over five years.
In 2011, at the height of Iran’s isolation under President Ahmadinejad, two radically unconventional designers are dropped into a conservative desert town.
They have been given six months to turn an abandoned, 500-year-old mud palace into a luxury hotel. Luck however is not on their side. A week later three foreign tourists are gaoled for eight years for spying and then the British embassy is looted and set on fire, discouraging all but the most intrepid of travellers. With the tightening of the already crippling international sanctions a project that seemed improbable begins to appear impossible.
Undaunted, Shadi and Amir fight on. Will they succeed?
Director: Ladan Anoushfar
Producer: Damian Clarke
DOPs: Ladan Anoushfar & Reza Hemassi
First broadcast: Al Jazeera English
