by Christos Zabounis

Those of us who hurried to press the remote-control button when we saw the first episode of the third season of the television series Tehran appear on our screens faced the same problem. We had forgotten the plot and the characters, some more, some less, depending on the reliability of our memory. In my case, I had to rewatch over the weekend both previous seasons in order to reconnect fully. While searching for the reasons behind the delay in the broadcast, I learned the obvious. Apple TV+, in light of the war between Israel and Hamas following the latter’s attack on October 7, decided to postpone its global release, for understandable reasons. One of these is the premise of the series itself: a Mossad agent who infiltrates and operates inside Iran. Another reason is that the production is Israeli, with its creators also having signed Fauda, a similar espionage thriller focusing on Palestine. It was therefore deemed appropriate not to further “fan the flames,” given the support for the Palestinians among segments of the population in more than 100 countries where Apple TV+ operates. In Greece, the series was first broadcast by Cosmote TV in 2020, which is in fact a co-producer. Greek viewers will recognize several locations of the capital, as many exterior scenes were filmed in Athens. The project was supported, moreover, by EKOME (the National Centre of Audiovisual Media and Communication), which for a period succeeded in attracting foreign productions through the cash rebate system—that is, the reimbursement of eligible expenses. The list of Greek contributors in the end credits is extensive; among them, I single out Dimitris Michelakis and Fenia Kosovitsa, while a smile is sure to be prompted by the appearance of the Divani hotel in… Istanbul. Let us not deceive ourselves, however. These Athenian stand-ins, as the international term goes, are unlikely for the most part to attract tourists, since they “play” other cities. What they do strengthen are the professionals of the audiovisual industry, who suffered immensely during Covid – whether actors, technicians, or producers.