Canada/Iran
THE WESTOXICATEDS
87 MIN
2025
The Westoxicateds is an autobiographical documentary about how forbidden rock songs, in the repressive atmosphere of post-1979 Iran, shaped the teenage minds of filmmaker Gilda Pourjabar and her brother, Siamak. Returning to Tehran, she retraces the obstacles and friendships forged in the 1990s while hunting for bootleg cassettes in their residential
complex of Ekbatan; once an icon of modernization, later a breeding ground for a rebellious youth culture. Blending personal narrative, archival footage, and doodle animation, The Westoxicateds traces the sociopolitical shifts after the Revolution, when the Islamic Republic declared war on “Westoxication”: the intoxicating influence of Western culture. In its crusade against this soft power, the regime banned Western music. Rock survived only through smuggled tapes and remnants from the Shah’s era. By the early 1990s, black-market satellite dishes sprouted on Ekbatan windowsills, bringing rock’n’ roll back home. Immersed in the grunge soundscape, Siamak became a poster artist blending alt-rock graphics with intricate motifs of Iranian miniature. Gilda, became a full-fledged westoxicated, migrating to Canada to chase her own Western dreams. Alongside its personal story, the film revisits key political moments in Iran’s recent history, tracing how each shift in power rippled through youth culture and artistic expression.
Cast & Crew
Producer: Gilda Pourjabar
Director: Gilda Pourjabar
Director of Photography: Davoud Malek Hosseini
Production Design: Mehran Golmohammadi
Music: Kamran Arashnia
Sound: Hassan Mahdavi
Editing: Gilda Pourjabar
complex of Ekbatan; once an icon of modernization, later a breeding ground for a rebellious youth culture. Blending personal narrative, archival footage, and doodle animation, The Westoxicateds traces the sociopolitical shifts after the Revolution, when the Islamic Republic declared war on “Westoxication”: the intoxicating influence of Western culture. In its crusade against this soft power, the regime banned Western music. Rock survived only through smuggled tapes and remnants from the Shah’s era. By the early 1990s, black-market satellite dishes sprouted on Ekbatan windowsills, bringing rock’n’ roll back home. Immersed in the grunge soundscape, Siamak became a poster artist blending alt-rock graphics with intricate motifs of Iranian miniature. Gilda, became a full-fledged westoxicated, migrating to Canada to chase her own Western dreams. Alongside its personal story, the film revisits key political moments in Iran’s recent history, tracing how each shift in power rippled through youth culture and artistic expression.
Cast & Crew
Producer: Gilda Pourjabar
Director: Gilda Pourjabar
Director of Photography: Davoud Malek Hosseini
Production Design: Mehran Golmohammadi
Music: Kamran Arashnia
Sound: Hassan Mahdavi
Editing: Gilda Pourjabar
Gilda Pourjabar
Gilda Pourjabar is a Montreal-based filmmaker and editor originally from Iran. After earning a BFA in Film Production and a Master’s in Film Studies, she built a career in documentary cinema as an editor, working on feature films as well as mainstream television series. Let There Be Light, a scientific documentary film for which she served as a co-editor, was a nominee for SXSW Grand Jury Award and won the Artistic Vision Award of the Big Sky Documentary FF. Her feature documentary debut, The Westoxicateds, retraces her coming of age in 1990s Tehran, where contraband rock cassettes became an outlet for teenage angst and anger, fuelling a subculture of defiance under the Islamic Republic’s restrictions. Through her editing practice and her own films, she is drawn to stories that bridge the personal and political, experimenting with the ways in which intimate family sagas intertwine with broader historical and cultural context.
Filmography
The Westoxicateds (doc., 2025)․
Gilda Pourjabar is a Montreal-based filmmaker and editor originally from Iran. After earning a BFA in Film Production and a Master’s in Film Studies, she built a career in documentary cinema as an editor, working on feature films as well as mainstream television series. Let There Be Light, a scientific documentary film for which she served as a co-editor, was a nominee for SXSW Grand Jury Award and won the Artistic Vision Award of the Big Sky Documentary FF. Her feature documentary debut, The Westoxicateds, retraces her coming of age in 1990s Tehran, where contraband rock cassettes became an outlet for teenage angst and anger, fuelling a subculture of defiance under the Islamic Republic’s restrictions. Through her editing practice and her own films, she is drawn to stories that bridge the personal and political, experimenting with the ways in which intimate family sagas intertwine with broader historical and cultural context.
Filmography
The Westoxicateds (doc., 2025)․
PHOTOS/TRAILER
