Based between London and Shiraz, Maryam Tafakory is an artist filmmaker making textual and filmic collages. Her work interweaves poetry, archival, and found material to explore depictions of erasure, secrecy, and censorship. This screening centres around Tafakory’s ongoing body of research into representations of women, and the lack thereof, in post-revolution Iranian cinema. In these essayistic videos, images and scenes drawn from a vast archive of films are reworked to examine intimacy, desire, and prohibition.

Alongside the recent works Irani Bagi, Nazarbazi, and Absent Wound, Tafakory will share excerpts of her current work-in-progress projects. The screening will begin with a performance lecture in which Tafakory will speak to unspoken prohibitions in post-revolution Iranian cinema.

Irani Bag  

Maryam Tafakory | 2021 | UK | 8′ | Digital | Farsi spoken, English Subtitles 

Using excerpts of films produced between 1990 and 2018, Irani Bag is a split-screen video essay questioning the innocence of bags in post-revolution Iranian cinema. 

Nazarbazi 

Maryam Tafakory | 2022 | UK | 19′ | Digital | Farsi spoken, English Subtitles 

Nazarbazi [the play of glances] is a film about love and desire in Iranian cinema where depictions of intimacy and touch between women and men are prohibited.

Absent Wound 

Maryam Tafakory | 2018 | UK | 10′ | Digital | Farsi spoken, English Subtitles 

Centred around two public spaces in Iran which women are prohibited from entering, this work depicts rituals of warrior training in combination with the recitations of a young girl coming to terms with her impending womanhood. 

 Followed by a conversation with Maryam Tafakory and Julian Ross

Presented in partnership with London Short Film Festival