With the people of Iran now targeted by the goons currently running the United States and Israel, Donald Trump’s recent and explicit threat to destroy their very “civilization” has only lent even more agony to it all. The word conjurs the potential loss of a truly great five-thousand-year legacy in architecture, painting, sculpture, poetry. I feel a particular pang for Iranian cinema, which was already severely impaired by the repressive dictatorship of the Islamic Republic, with many filmmakers imprisoned or forced into exile.