The Invisible Trap

2/25/2025

The Invisible Trap, directed by Fariborz Saleh, is a lesser-known film that was produced in the final year of the second Pahlavi government at the behest of the SAVAK. Following the Islamic revolution and the subsequent sociopolitical transformations in society, the film was buried in the Iranian film archive. With the recent unearthing of the film, the history of Iranian cinema has uncovered one of the earliest cinematic productions made by a security agency, which can be considered a pioneering example of surveillance cinema in Iran. Dam-e Namari narrates the story of the identification and surveillance of Ahmad Mogharebi, a Major General of the Imperial Iranian Army, who was a highly influential spy for the Soviet Union's security organization, known as the KGB.