Kamran Shirdel - An shab ke barun amad AKA The Night it Rained (1967)

Also known as The Epic Of Gorgan Village Boy, is a modern-day epic that attempts to retrace the true circumstances of a heroic act in the north-Iranian countryside. One rainy night near the village of Gorgan, a schoolboy discovered that the heavy rains had washed away the soil underneath a section of railroad tracks. He proceeded to stop an oncoming train by lighting his coat on fire, standing on the tracks and waving it. Doing so, the schoolboy prevented a terrible railroad accident. Incorporating newspaper reports and interviews with railroad employees, the governor, the chief of police, the village teacher, students and villagers, Shirdel describes the events, or better, the divergent recollections of them. The skilfully and cyclically edited footage is riddled with contradictions. How could this young hero have set fire to his coat in the pouring rain? Did he even exist? According to one toothless old man, “It’s all just a pack of lies.”