still from Sara Kazemimanesh - Heideh: A Return

still from Shahriar Shafiani - Sin Luces

Thursday March 5 * 7pm * $10-20 * TICKETS

We are pleased to present an evening of films by Sara Kazemimanesh & Shahriar Shafiani, both of whom will be present for a discussion with the audience following the screening.

Sara Kazemimanesh (b. 1988, Rasht, Iran) is a writer, filmmaker, and educator. Her work moves between interpretative and critical writing and expanded art practice. In her films, and often through restrained, formally attentive storytelling, she explores displacement, agency of women, and the nuanced ways private lives collide with larger socio-political forces. Sara’s films have been showcased and recognized internationally. She holds a Ph.D. in Interdisciplinary Arts from Ohio University.

Shahriar Shafiani is a film director, scholar, and educator. Born and raised in Iran, Shafiani began his career as an independent filmmaker before relocating to the United States for graduate study. Shafiani holds a PhD in Interdisciplinary Arts and an MFA in Film from Ohio University. He is an Assistant Professor of Film at Howard University, where he also coordinates the Graduate Film Program. Alongside his academic work, Shafiani continues to direct, edit, and coach performers for film and television.

Sara Kazemimanesh - Journey of Innertia (2020-2026)
Role: Writer, Director, Producer
TRT: 13:00
Format: Experimental Documentary (Rough cut)
Description: This autoethnographic work traces an obligatory return to Iran after several years away. Interweaving field-recorded audio, found and documentary footage, and hand-drawn animation, the film confronts the deeply personal dimensions of administrative violence and forced separation. A voiceover essay—part poetic meditation, part grounded narrative—guides the viewer through existential terrain: aging parents, bureaucratic limbo, and the surreal crisis of national identity.

Sara Kazemimanesh - Heideh: A Return (2022)
Role: Director, Producer
TRT: 4:48
Description: This short video essay blends rotoscope animation with home video aesthetics to engage the exilic mythos surrounding Hayedeh (1942–1990), the iconic Iranian singer. Through voice-over and sound collage—composed of archival audio, funeral drums, and sirens—the film interweaves personal meditations on return, longing, and national memory.

Sara Kazemimanesh - Immunity Not Limitation (2017)
Role: Director, Producer, Performer
TRT: 2:47
Description: Shot and edited entirely in-camera on 16mm film, this stop-motion piece parodies state propaganda that likens unveiled women to unwrapped candy.

Sara Kazemimanesh - Or Not (2017)
Role: Director, Producer
TRT: 2:51
Description: A film essay inspired by Judith Mayne’s The Woman at the Keyhole, this work interrogates the gendered gaze and narrative closure. High-contrast visuals, dubbed sound, and in-camera edits create a minimal, stage-like atmosphere where text and image collide.

Sara Kazemimanesh - Home Birth (2017)
Role: Director, Producer
TRT: 1:35
Description: An abstract portrait of domestic space, Home Birth fuses haptic visuals with tactile sound to reconstruct memory through sensory fragments. 

Sara Kazemimanesh - Memory Remain (2016)
Role: Director, Producer
TRT: 5:38 
Description: This short video essay explores the historical and emotional weight of societal expectations placed on women. It blends found footage from mid-20th century advertisements promoting the ideal of the submissive, domestic housewife; excerpts from a documentary on the poet Sylvia Plath; interviews with singer Marianne Faithfull; and archival material from Iranian poet Forough Farrokhzad’s funeral. Together, these elements evoke the silencing and erasure of women’s voices, and the persistent tension between public performance and internal collapse.

Shahriar Shafiani - Still (هنوز)
Role: Writer, Director, Producer
TRT: 7:47
Synopsis: A languid day in a neighborhood park in Tehran, where two young men pass the time with smoke, talk, and daydreaming.

Shahriar Shafiani - The Long, Long Distance
Role: Director, Editor
TRT: 5:14
Synopsis: Born out of footage from my travels to Iran, The Long, Long Distance uses disjointed sound and image to evoke an impression of the seven years I could not return.

Shahriar Shafiani - Sin Luces
Role: Director, Producer
TRT: 18:32
Synopsis: Sin Luces follows Jerry, a bartender quietly losing himself to drink as he struggles to feel at home in a changing hometown. Over the course of a World Cup workday, brief moments of camaraderie frame his effort to hold on to a world that is slipping away.

still from Sara Kazemimanesh - Home Birth