Mansour Taeed

In Iran, higher education is a crime—for Bahá’ís. The Forbidden University exposes a secret underground network where students and teachers risk prison, raids and exile, for the right to learn. Told through daring first-person accounts and striking animated reenactments, this is the hidden story of a secret beacon of hope born in the shadows.

Iranian Taboo tells the harrowing story of Baha'i woman Nadereh and her 14-year-old daughter who decide to sell all their belongings and leave their home in Isfahan to take refuge in the west. The film takes us across continents from Turkey to Israel and from the USA to Iran. We are given unique insights - from the underground Baha'i university (BIHE) to Iranian Nobel Peace Prize winner, Shirin Ebadi, from the suppressed Baha'i peasants of the Ivel village in the northern province of Mazanraran to Abolhassan Banisadr, 1st president of the Islamic Republic of Iran.