Oliver Stone wants to make a biopic about Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, according to Iranian press reports. The English-language Tehran Times quoted authorities as saying that the director may soon visit Iran to meet with officials to seek authorization for a movie tentatively titled “Ahmadinejad’s Adventures.” The authorities conditioned their support for the film on a personal visit by Stone, the Jewish filmmaker who has made controversial movie biographies of Presidents John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon. The article in the Times, dated Dec. 1, reported tensions between the Islamic Society of Artists, which favors the film, and advisers to the president, who are opposed. An opinion piece in Keyhan, a conservative newspaper, decried the effort. It would be a mistake to rely on Stone’s goodwill, it said, “taking into consideration the history of measures by western media against Iran’s Islamic system and its nation and the domination and influence of global Zionism on the said media and the establishment of a media empire with a Zionist nature.” Ahmadinejad has questioned the veracity of the Holocaust and is on the record as wishing that Israel would not exist. Calls to Stone’s publicist were not returned. Secrecy News, a blog published by the Federation of American Scientists, first brought attention to the story last week.
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