Bistun Project director Maliheh Mehdiabadi said that UNESCO had previously asked for the documentary of the complex to facilitate international media efforts to promote the world’s cultural heritage.

Director Hormoz Emami’s film focuses first on the Bistun Inscription and then provides a beautiful landscape of the complex, she added.

Emami has also made documentaries about Yazd, Persepolis, and the Marvdasht plain.

UNESCO has launched a project calling for the production of one-minute documentaries on world historical sites, and all countries which have submitted dossiers of their historical sites to UNESCO must prepare such documentaries.

Iran previously submitted documentaries on the Soltanieh Dome in Zanjan Province and Persepolis in Fars Province.

A petrochemical factory being built by Islamic regime in the area, highway construction, and other construction underway near the site are the main threats which could cause Bistun to lose its chance to be registered on the UNESCO World Heritage List.

However, after several meetings with Kermanshah provincial officials, the Research Center of the Cultural Heritage and Tourism Organization (CHTO) has assured UNESCO that no construction will be authorized near the site.

Located 30 kilometers east of the provincial capital city of Kermanshah, Bistun contains a number of unique ancient sites from the Median, Achaemenid, Parthian, and Sasanid dynastic eras.

The Bistun Inscription, probably the most important monument of the site, is a trilingual statement of Darius the Great in Aryan also known as Old Persian, Elamite, and Babylonian.

The inscription, which is approximately 15 meters in height and 25 meters in width, is located on a relatively inaccessible cliff 100 meters above an ancient road connecting the capitals of Babylonia and Media, Babylon and Ecbatana. However, it can be easily viewed from below.