Passages
A Flat Surface Higher than the Ground
Naghmeh AbbasiNarrated by a fictional character who finds refuge from a demonstration ended violently by militia forces in a park, the film offers a micro image of the socio-political climate in Iran and visualizes politics through different spaces of City Park, Tehran’s first public park.
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Images Festival is committed to providing an accessible festival and continues to work to reduce barriers to participation at our events. This year, we are implementing a COVID-19 policy to reduce the risk of COVID-19 transmission for all, and to prioritize the participation of people who are disability-identified, immunocompromised, or part of an otherwise vulnerable group.
The following guidelines will be in place: Self-Assessment: We ask that staff and participants screen themselves for COVID-19 before visiting the exhibition.
Passages foregrounds the work for four Iranian filmmakers: Parastoo Anoushapour, Naghmeh Abbasi and Siavash Yazdanmehr, and Rojin Shafiei. The works examine the political positioning of land, body and belonging in individual ways.
Where The Time That Separates Us considers the story of Lot’s wife in deep time, focusing on the geographical and visceral consequences that linger today in both land and body, Landscape Suspended reflects on the Shaho Mountainl—a place in Iranian Kurdistan of Iran which is home to both nomadic tribes called the Havar Nishins as well as Kurdish guerrillas.
آنجا . . . / . . . There depicts a woman at odds with the narrative of an ideal citizen as portrayed by the state while A Flat Surface Higher than the Ground places footage of people in Tehran's City Park, depicted as a heterotopic site within the broader socio-political context.
The works presented in Passages are a way through the traditions, myths, and contemporary frameworks that give credence to the ideological whims that disfavour those they target.
Please join us for a conversation with the filmmakers after the screening.
This program is created in solidarity with the people of Iran and in support of the ongoing Woman, Life, Freedom movement.
Parastoo Anoushahpour is an artist originally from Tehran, now based in Toronto, who works predominantly with film, video, and installation. Her recent work has been shown at the Plugin ICA, Berlinale, MoMA, The Flaherty Film Seminar, Punto de Vista Film Festival, Sharjah Film Platform, Viennale, NYFF, TIFF, Images Festival, IFF Rotterdam, Oberhausen, Experimenta in Bangalore, and Media City. Since 2013, she has developed a shared practice with Ryan Ferko and Faraz Anoushahpour.
Rojin Shafiei is an Iranian interdisciplinary artist/filmmaker living and working in Toronto. Rojin received her BFA in Intermedia from Concordia University in 2017 and is an MFA candidate in Film Production at York University. She has screened her work internationally. In 2019, she was the Venice Lands Art Prize candidate in Treviso, Italy. Her piece I wait for the time received the grand prize in the Startupfest/Artupfest section in 2018.
Naghmeh Abbasi is an artist and filmmaker who lives and works in Tehran and Montreal. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Film, Video and Integrated media from Emily Carr University of Art and Design and an MA in Media Studies from The New School.Her practice has taken different forms ranging from photography, video, and installation to documentary/experimental film.
Siavash Yazdanmehr is a filmmaker who lives and works in Tehran. He holds a bachelor’s degree in geology from Azad University and took a master class in documentary and experimental film with Kamran Shirdel at the Mahe- Mehr Institute of Art and Culture in Tehran.