For Neda is a documentary about Neda Agha Soltan (below), the young Iranian woman who was shot in the middle of the demonstrations in Tehran last summer. The camera phone pictures of her horrible death and photographs of her beautiful face went around the world in hours, turning her into a symbol of the crushed hopes of the green movement.
The film was commissioned by HBO for the June anniversary of the demonstrations. At its heart are long chatty interviews with Neda's family, filmed secretly by Iranian journalist Saeed Kamali Dehghan on a small hand-held camera.
The home-video feel of the conversations with her mother, sister and father meshes well with the footage from the streets that was filmed on mobile phones and uploaded to YouTube and Facebook.
The film has gone viral in Iran with the active support of HBO. So far it's not been seen on British television, but you can watch it on YouTube.
After a recent screening at the Frontline Club in London, its director, Anthony Thomas, answered questions. The tone of some of the questions may have suggested why the film hasn't been taken up by a UK broadcaster yet.
One film-maker found the use of music too emotive; another questioned why there was so much about the telegenic Neda when there were other Iranians' stories to be told. Someone else complained that there were too many interviews with well-groomed Iranian exiles who had taken no part in the summer demonstrations.
What stumped Thomas (and a fair few in the audience too) was a question about whether the film could have integrity when, the questioner implied, there was so little chance to film in Iran and talk to the real protagonists, forcing the production to lean heavily on a patchwork of phone footage and old archive. I supposed she was asking: why would you start from here?
Thomas has a track record of working within limits that would make fainter hearts throw in the towel. He made Tank Man, a documentary about the still unnamed man who held up the tanks in Tiananmen Square.
What the questioner failed to recognise is that the wider audience is far more accepting of YouTube-quality footage than documentary buffs might think. It is now the raw material of news and therefore of documentaries - and Thomas and his team made great use if it.
When even a highly produced programme such as the BBC's Imagine includes an interview with Canadian writer Margaret Atwood on Skype, in its recent profile of Diana Athill, you know that shift is permanent.
