Maryam Tafakory

Maryam Tafakory is a filmmaker and researcher whose practice dwells in the haunting interstices between personal history, political censorship, and the archival image. Born in Iran and currently based in London, she interrogates the rigid boundaries of the cinematic gaze, often employing a precise, collage-based methodology to dissect the manifestations of desire and repression within the Iranian socio-political landscape. Her work functions as a visual essay, meticulously layering text, fragmented footage, and silence to articulate what has been historically rendered invisible or unspeakable. Her celebrated works, such as Fragment, 5.10.15.20, and the poetic, structuralist masterpiece Nazarbazi, have garnered profound acclaim on the international festival circuit, including screenings at the Berlinale, Toronto International Film Festival, and the New York Film Festival. Through these vignettes, Tafakory masterfully orchestrates a dialogue between absence and presence, transforming the act of film viewing into an intimate, meditative engagement with the complexities of cultural identity and the poetic resistance of the moving image.