A documentary going behind the scenes on Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s six-year ordeal is coming to Channel 4
The U.K. broadcaster has commissioned a single documentary, entitled “Nazanin,” from filmmaker and journalist Darius Bazargan. The project claims to give “the definitive exclusive access into one of biggest international news stories of the last 6 years,” and follows Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s husband Richard and his family as he campaigns to bring his wife Nazanin home from detention in Iran.
Zaghari-Ratcliffe returned to England this week after six years of detention in Iran, where she was imprisoned after being convicted of unspecified “national security-related” crimes in 2016. Her detention is believed to have been in direct response to an unpaid £400 million debt owed by the U.K. government to Iran, which has now been paid.
The doc will reveal the “inner-workings” of the real-life drama for Richard Ratcliffe, who launched a very public campaign — including various hunger strikes — to free his wife, as well as his young daughter Gabriella, and from Nazanin herself while she was still detained in Iran.
An official synopsis provided by Channel 4 reads: “We see her young daughter Gabriella trying to cope with the separation from her mother. We see the stress on Richard as he tries to juggle a media and political campaign to free his wife and raise his daughter. We follow Richard as he realises his wife’s detention is deeply connected to the complicated and toxic diplomatic relationship between Britain and Iran and to an unpaid debt going back half a century.”
The film will also have a close look at the final dramatic days as a specialist British Foreign Office negotiating team in Tehran wrangled with the Revolutionary Guards over the price for her freedom, and will also provide exclusive pictures of the family’s reunion at a British military airbase.
The story of Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s return to the U.K. has dominated national media this week.
“Nazanin” will air later this year. It is filmed and directed by Bazargan, executive produced by Ben de Pear and commissioned by Nevine Mabro.