As I like to dig through old news clippings, and am a fan of Dario Argento's horror movies...
(Just to be clear, Dario Argento didn't have anything to do with this movie. He just happens to be an Italian movie director, like the guy mentioned in this article.)
Iran awarded $400,000 in damages over film showing fake atrocities
01/31/1987 Orange County Register
By Uli Schmetzer, Chicago Tribune.
An Italian film company has been ordered to pay $400,000 to the government of Iran after a local court found that film sequences showing atrocities allegedly committed by Iranian soldiers were fakes.
The ruling ended a three-year battle by the Iranian Embassy in Rome against Racing Film and Titanus Film, producers and distributors of the 1983 documentary "Sweet and Barbaric."
Racing Film, the producer, was ordered to pay the damages within 60 days.
The film was widely publicized for a scene in which Iranian soldiers used two Jeeps to pull the arms off an Iraqi prisoner of war. Another scene showed a close-up of an Iraqi prisoner being executed by an Iranian soldier with a pistol shot in the neck.
Stills from the film were widely used by newspapers and magazines around the world. Iraqi officials produced them on many occasions as evidence that the Iranians were maltreating their prisoners of war.
But six court experts, aided by blow-ups of the crucial scenes, found that the filmmakers had used actors who not only staged the atrocities but reappeared in different roles, both in Iraqi and Iranian uniforms.
The film director, who had previously gained some success with second-rate horror movies, made some basic mistakes. For example, he mixed genuine 16mm newsreel film with staged scenes on 35mm film.
Still photographs from the film shown in court clearly revealed the weapons held by the actors were made by an Italian manufacturer, of a type not issued by the Iranian army. And the actor whose arms were torn away could be clearly seen with his arms strapped to his body beneath his uniform in the courtroom blow-ups.
It was pointed out in court that while "blood" -- probably colored water -- spurted from his shoulder, no blood was dripping from the severed arm shown in one sequence.
In 1984, soon after the false documentary was screened in Italy, Judge Roberto Preden of Rome, acting on a complaint by the Iranian ambassador, prohibited showings of the film.
"After the film was shown in Iraq , angry Iraqi soldiers maltreated Iranian prisoners of war in retaliation, according to information we received from our prisoners," Mahmood Mohammadi, a senior diplomat at the Iranian Embassy in Rome said.
The Iranian Embassy had asked the court for $800,000 in damages.
The companies argued they had been duped by the film director into believing the sequences were genuine and had been shot secretly at two prisoner-of-war camps in Iran .
The companies still face criminal proceedings for fraud.
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Tehran television in English 1300 gmt 22 Apr 85
"The head of Iran's war information HQ has presented evidence to prove forgery and falsehood in an Iraqi propaganda film called Sweet and Barbaric, which depicts Iranian soldiers killing Iraqi prisoners of war. Before screening the film yesterday [21st April] Mr Kharrazi presented photographs contradicting the Iraqi claims. Then the film, an Iraqi-Italian coproduction, was screened for a number of Iranian and foreign diplomats and reporters. Iran has already filed suit against the Italian company involved in the production of the faked film, Mr Kharrazi said. The film was screened in slow motion to show that the Iranian soldiers depicted are shown carrying Italian submachineguns which have never been used by the Iranian forces today. The soldiers' uniforms were also different from that of real Iranian combatants. . . [Other discrepancies] On the basis of similar evidence, an Italian court barred the film from screening in Italy, added Mr Kharrazi.At the end of this meeting, Mr Kharrazi said: Screening of the film in European countries might be a pretext for obstructing world attention from the atrocities taking place against Iranian PoWs in camps inside Iraq. He added: Iraq wants to make the world public opinion forget its use of chemical weapons in the Persian Gulf war. "
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