Iranian filmmaker Anahita Ghazvinizadeh is celebrated for her finely crafted character studies, which often feature non-professional actors in stories of young people facing uncertainty and change. Ghazvinizadeh presents her short film alongside a selection of works by artists whose approach resonates with her own.
Followed by a conversation with Anahita Ghazvinizadeh and Daniel Quiles, Associate Professor of Art History, Theory and Criticism at SAIC.
1963–2023, Iran, United Kingdom, USA
Format: Digital
In English, Arabic, and Farsi with English subtitles
79 minutes followed by discussion
PROGRAM
The House is Black
Forugh Farrokhzad, 1963, 22 minutes
The only film directed by feminist Iranian poet Forugh Farrokhzad finds unexpected grace where few would think to look: a leper colony whose inhabitants live, worship, learn, play, and celebrate in a self-contained community cut off from the rest of the world. A forerunner of the Iranian New Wave, The House is Black is a profoundly empathetic portrait of those cast off by society. (Criterion/Janus Films)
Measures of Distance
Mona Hatoum, 1988, 15 minutes
In this rare autobiographical work, British Palestinian artist Mona Hatoum reflects on her personal experience of displacement. In 1975, while visiting London, she was separated from her family when war broke out in Lebanon, preventing her from returning to Beirut. Revisiting the letters she exchanged with her mother during this time, Hatoum overlays images of her mother’s body with their words to evoke the emotional toll of their separation.
Bezuna
Saif Alsaegh, 2023, 8 minutes
Saif Alsaegh evokes complexities of fleeing a war-zone by focusing on peripheral details.
My Life is Wind (A Letter)
Anahita Ghazvinizadeh, 2024, 33 minutes
In her latest work, My Life is Wind (A Letter), Ghazvinizadeh follows Myriam, a war refugee newly resettled in Iowa. As Myriam navigates her unfamiliar surroundings, she channels her grief into a letter to the grandmother she had to leave behind.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Anahita Ghazvinizadeh is a director, screenwriter, editor, and educator. Her short film Needle won the Cinéfondation Premier Prix in Cannes Film Festival in 2013, and her feature directorial debut They premiered at Cannes Film Festival in 2017. Ghazvinizadeh was named as one of the 25 new faces of independent cinema by Filmmaker Magazine in 2013, and is an alumnus of the Sundance Screenwriters Lab. She is currently assistant professor in the Film, Video, New Media, and Animation department at SAIC.
ACCESSIBILITY
Conversations at the Edge events have live captions (CART). The Gene Siskel Film Center is fully ADA accessible and its theaters are equipped with hearing loops. For other accessibility requests, please visit saic.edu/access or write cate@saic.edu