Saad Mohseni

And they went from one venue to another, and the mob would follow these people.

The contestants?

The contestants, the judges, the production people.

And they were petrified.

So eventually they managed to shoot the episode at the airport behind the gates.

Nonetheless, they did what they needed to do.

And at that time we had lots of threats and even attempted attacks against the performers as well as the judges.

So they were always constantly in hiding.

But that's one of the many, many experiences that our people had to deal with.

How many seasons did that show run for?

It ran from 2005 till 2020.

Yes, yes.

I mean, it was always because every time they had the...

eventually we did it in-house which was easier but we used to do it in you know rent a studio or do it in a hotel and there would be always a you know group of people protesting uh and there was always a lot of security why i mean why did you and your team take the risk that's a good question i mean uh i don't know i think that's uh ultimately you have to ask what the what the

what your consumers, what the audience demands.

It was a popular program.

And we talk about Iran in terms of the support of the government, and we talk about Afghanistan's support of the Taliban.

Usually, and certainly in Afghanistan, 85, 90% of the population supported music entertainment programs.

They wanted to have fun.

They wanted to have entertainment.