SoArt Persian Short Film Festival

Date: 

Thursday, August 18, 2022, 4:00pm to 7:00pm

Location: 

William James Hall, B1, 33 Kirkland St, Cambridge MA

In Afghanistan and Iran, members of ethnic, religious, linguistic, and sexual minorities face discrimination daily in all spheres of life. This includes economic marginalization, denial of cultural rights, language rights, religious freedom, freedom of expression, and violations of political rights. In order to address these issues, SoArt festival was created to engage the next generation of activists and artists who can use art as a means to promote dialogue on social issues and increase community cohesion for social change.

SoArt short film festival 2022 will screen ten short films in competition, including:

  • Zohal, by Nasrin Mohammadpour
  • Nazpari, by Mohammad Reza Mohammadi
  • The Hidden in the Pain, by Danial Ghasemian
  • Dance in the Dark, by Sarajuddin Bayat
  • Bitter Night, by Mahshid Motahar
  • The Bitter End of Khounbas, by Mehdi Mousavi Shirazi
  • Colorless, by Abdul Hamid Mandgar
  • At a Dead End Alley, by Amrullah Ahmadian
  • Path, by Fatemeh Shafiei
  • Behind the Yellow Line, by Javad HabibPour

These films cover forced child marriage, LGBTQ issues, cultural issues such as Khounbas, which refers to cultural challenges of gifting a girl to the family of victim for solving conflict, the challenge of abortion, and children’s life and disabilities in those countries. Also we will screen a documentary about child execution in Iran, entitled Puls Under 18th, which is out of competition. This film looks at the Iranian filmmaker's effort to stop child execution. All films will be in Persian with English subtitles.

Contact: 

Sean Widlake
Center for Middle Eastern Studies
Harvard University
38 Kirkland Street
Cambridge, MA 02138

617-495-4055

Co-sponsor: Touch Art Gallery