Filmed in the USA?

No matter where it was made, I hope this'll encourage Iranians to make movies and encourage some movement to the world community. Iran used to be quite metropolitan but got to be such a closed society. I hope the pendulum is swinging the other way.

I think the ratio of great Iranian films to Iranians, which is to say per capita great film production, is pretty much the best in the world, these days.

And Iranian food ("Persian" in the U.S., of course, or else no one would patronize it) is amazing.

It's silly to think you have a sense of a nation's culture from just their movies and their cuisine, but I can't help thinking that we blew it politically, big-time, there, and that there's some parallel world where they're our biggest Middle East ally and the greatest liberalizing force among Islamic nations.

Prepare your minds for a new scale of physical, scientific values, gentlemen.

Yes I agree. I was under the assumption it was made over there as well

Agreed. The whole "Iranian film" marketing is such a sham, it makes me like the movie less. It's like she wanted to get the attention that westernized foreign (especially middle eastern) films get in the American market to steam line this somehow

hahahaha.

The question isn't 'Why was it filmed in the US?' but 'Why was it set in Iran?'. Why not film it in English if that's the language the actors speak? It makes your movie much easier to market. This movie got a lot of hype because it was marketed as being an Iranian movie, but it's not. Pretentious, arthouse douchebags love foreign movies just because they're foreign but this movie was made in California by mostly Americans. It's pretty shady, really. There was no reason to set it in Iran. It didn't take use the location at all. It didn't matter where it was set. The language could've easily been English. It didn't make any difference. They just pretended like it's an Iranian movie to get the arthouse crowd excited because they're the only ones that'll like this long, drawn out, boring movie.

I think you are way overstating the censorship in Iran. Yes there is a censor but an admitted censor is someone you can negotiate with. Try negotiating with the MPAA they will not even tell you what part of your film is risking getting you a NC17 which in hyper commercial USA is commercial death. There is all kinds of censorship in this world. Hollywood is one of the most censored and gutless and intolerant film factories on the planet. What makes the intellectual cowardice in American films and the constant glorification of American imperialism and its crimes by Hollywood productions is that it is voluntary Hollywood chooses to collaborate with Washington. If you live in a country where there is very strict rules like Iran it is not the filmmakers chose and they can only appeal to the people in the Ministry on a human level and hope for the best. In contrast no one put a gun to the head of the producers of films like BLACK HAWK DOWN to have the screenplay subjected to multiple draft review and changes at the hands of the Pentagon screenplay department. In Iran it may not be possible to make films with female junkies and vampires but then again Iran does not put out sick fascist crap like AMERICAN SNIPER.