1. For Neda HBO Documentary By: Filmmaker Antony Thomas By: Stephanie Walker

2. Synopsis The footage of the death of NedaAgha-Soltan, January 23, 1983 – June 20, 2009 drew international attention after she was killed during the 2009 Iranian election protests.Herdeath was captured on video by bystanders and broadcast over the Internet and the video became a rallying point for the reformist opposition.Itwas described as "probably the most widely witnessed death in human history”.Neda is a word used in Persian to mean "voice", "calling," or "divine message," and she has been referred to as the "voice of Iran."Her death became iconic in the struggle of Iranian protesters against what they said was the fraudulent election of President MahmoudAhmadinejad. This is first time that a documentary has come out about her life and the people that were in it. You will here stories about this day and the people who knew Neda personally. Facts from HBO and Wikipedia

3. The Beginning’s of Neda Agha-Soltan was the middle child of a middle-class family of three children,whose family resided in a fourth floor apartment on Meshkini Street in the Tehranpars neighborhood of Tehran.Her father is a civil servant and her mother is a homemaker. She graduated from Islamic Azad University, where she had studied Islamic theology as well as secular philosophies.She was divorced, and according to her mother, had difficulty finding work because of how employers perceived her. Agha-Soltan was an aspiring, underground Persian popular singer and musician, who was studying her craft through private voice and music lessons.She had studied the violin and had an as-yet-undelivered piano on order at the time of her death. She worked for her family's travel agency.Agha-Soltanenjoyed travelling, having saved up money to go on package tours with her friends to Dubai, Thailand and Turkey. She had studied Turkish, hoping it would aid her as a guide for Iranians on foreign tours in Turkey. She was in Turkey, two months prior to her death. This is where she met her fiancé, 37-year-old Caspian Makan, who worked as a photojournalist in Tehran. Facts from HBO and Wikipedia

4. Who was Neda Those who knew her maintain that Agha-Soltan had not previously been very political – she had not supported any particular candidate in the 2009 Iran elections – but that anger over the election results prompted her to join the protest. Her voice and music teacher, HamidPanahi, who was accompanying Agha-Soltan during the protest and can be seen on the video trying to comfort the dying woman, told the media: "She couldn't stand the injustice of it." Panahi went on to state: "All she wanted was the proper vote of the people to be counted. She wanted to show with her presence that, 'I'm here, I also voted, and my vote wasn't counted'. It was a very peaceful act of protest, without any violence.“ Facts from HBO and Wikipedia

5. June 20, 2009 On June 20, 2009, at around 6:30 p.m., NedaAgha-Soltan was sitting in her Peugeot 206 in traffic on KargarAvenue in the city of Tehran. She was accompanied by her music teacher and close friend, HamidPanahi, and two others, who remain unidentified. The four were on their way to participate in the protests against the outcome of the 2009 Iranian presidential election. The car's air conditioner was not working well, so she stopped her car some distance from the main protests and got out on foot to escape the heat. She was standing and observing the sporadic protests in the area when she was shot in the chest. As captured on amateur video,she collapsed to the ground and was tended to by a doctor, her music teacher, and others from the crowd. Someone in the crowd around her shouted, "She has been shot! Someone, come and take her! Her last words were, "I'm burning, I'm burning!“She died en route to Tehran's Shariati hospital. Hejazi, standing one meter away from her when she was shot, tried to staunch her wound with his hands. Hejazi said nearby members of the crowd pulled a man from his motorcycle while shouting: "We got him, we got him," disarmed him, obtained his identity card and identified him as a member of the Basij militia (government paramilitary). The militiaman, identified as AbbasKargarJavid, was shouting, "I didn't want to kill her." The protesters let him go, but they kept the alleged killer's identity card and took many photographs of him.A recent documentary on the shooting contained a previously unseen clip of demonstrators capturing the militiaman seconds after the shooting. Facts from HBO and Wikipedia

6. 2009- 2010 Iranian Student Protests Date: June 13, 2009 – ongoing Deaths: 20-30 confirmed and 200+ unconfirmed Protests following the 2009 Iranian presidential election against the disputed victory of Iranian President MahmoudAhmadinejad and in support of opposition candidate Mir-HosseinMousavi occurred in major cities in Iran and around the world.StartingJune 13, 2009, The protests were given several titles by their proponents including Green Revolution, Green Wave or Sea of Green, reflecting presidential candidate Mousavi's campaign color, and also Persian Awakening. The events have also been nicknamed the "Twitter Revolution" because of the protesters' reliance on twitter and other social-networking Internet sites to communicate with each other.Islamicpolitician Ata'ollahMohajerani blasted the election as "the end of the Islamic Republic". In response to the protests, other groups rallied in Tehran to support Ahmadinejad. Some called the controversial election results a coup. Widespread editorial analyses assert that the 2009 election marks the official end of the Islamic Republic and the beginning of the AbadgaranRegime.Allthree opposition candidates claimed that the votes were manipulated and the election was rigged, and candidates MohsenRezaee and Mousavi have lodged official complaints. Mousavi announced that he "won't surrender to this manipulation" before lodging an official appeal against the result to the Guardian Council on June 14. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei declared the unprecedented voter turnout and coinciding religious holidays as a "divine assessment" and urged the nation to unite, but later ostensibly ordered an investigation into the claims of voting fraud and irregularities. Mousavi is not optimistic about his appeal, saying that many of the group's members "during the election were not impartial". Ahmadinejadcalled the election "completely free" and the outcome "a great victory" for Iran, dismissing the protests as little more than "passions after a soccer match". Police and the Basijia paramilitary group suppressed both peaceful demonstrating and rioting using batons, pepper spray, sticks and, in some cases, firearms. The Iranian government has confirmed the deaths of 36 people during the protests, while unconfirmed reports by supporters of Mousavi allege that there have been 72 deaths (twice as many) in the three months following the disputed election.Iranianauthorities have closed universities in Tehran, blocked web sites, blocked cell phone transmissions and text messaging, and banned rallies. Neda is one of many. Facts from HBO and Wikipedia