CANCELLED | Tehran 1380 | Tirdad Zolghadr, Solmaz Shahbazi | 2002 | 45 min.
Tehran is a wildly growing metropolis of concrete and neon that does not seem to fit into common urban planning or aesthetic standards. The population has quadrupled since 1980 to 12 million inhabitants. The approach of the Iranian filmmakers Solmaz Shahbazi and Tirdad Zolghadr to the city is neither guided by western ideals nor by homeland feelings. "Tehran 1380" describes a metropolis where modernity and tradition intermingle in a complex way and presents different points of view concerning the identity and future of the city.

|Amirali Mohebinejad  | 27 Minutes to Go| 17:00| 2009|
The immigration is a very common solution in sick societies, such as mine. But it was never that intelligible to me… To me, it’s a short-term tranquilizer, but not a permanent cure. Since i am attached to the past, the immigration carries the risk of missing my homeland, childhood, family, memories, and friends; to achieve some privileges in another country. That’s the price which i should pay. Meanwhile, the people around me are leaving the country and it is the sad part of staying. Unfortunately, I, as a non-leaver, just wait for the next goodbye; and as time goes by, I find myself increasingly lonely in my own country. It is the concept of isolation.
 
| Roya Keshavarz | Khalvat | 07:37 | 2016 |
I have been living in Tehran for more than 25 years and I have witnessed a big difference between the concept of personal space in this city compared to the foreign cities I visited and the definitions I was given in academic courses.
This misunderstanding about personal space in Tehran deeply affects the society as well as the family relationships. The main cause for this mistaken approach to personal space is tightly related to cultural features of the Middle East.
Problems about privacy and personal space are very common inside the smallest structure of society, family. Family has a central place in Iranian culture and being at the core of society, has a direct impact on the way people use or learn to use public spaces. In particular, there is not enough respect for others’ personal space in this lively city of approximately 13 million inhabitants.
In this project I tried to analyze and film the reactions and mood of pedestrians when their personal space is invaded, ordinary people passing or working in this public place when they are confronted with dancers in this crowded space in a creative and unexpected way. How will the crowd receive this energy given by the dancers, how will they share the space?
“KHALVAT” is a development of Rapaport’s definition of environment to me, which suggests a framework for understanding the nature of environment and its components. “According to this framework, environment is a set of relationships between objects with objects, objects with human, and human with human. Based on this, environment has three components: natural environment, human-made environment, human-interaction environment.” (1982, the meaning of the built environment). The last model was the base of the project which is directly related to combining people’s energies; Human-Interaction environment.

| Rat Race | Mona Kakanj | Video | 2016 | 7 min
A few years after the Iranian Revolution of 1979, the government of the newly-established Islamic Republic clamped down on dog ownership. The number of cats, both domestic and feral, increased drastically, becoming a special feature of Tehran, while dogs are a rare sight in the crowded city streets. Not so in Cologne, where there are proud dog owners everywhere. It only seems logical, then, that East and West would fight like cats and dogs. Yet sometimes cats and dogs get along quite well, as we see in so many YouTube videos. The project Rat Race plays with the fluidity of these metaphors. Rat Race ironically underlines the cultural differences between the street cats of Tehran and the domesticated dogs of Cologne.

| Red Noise | Foozhan Xajeh | 2018 | 2 min
This video has been made by the combination of the current flow of young fellows and attachment of the photos from the places in Japan called Aokigahara, the suicide jungle and Takakanonuma, abandoned amusement park. The places identified by the bitter incidents of the past which brings an ambiguous atmosphere to mind, kind of a careless and rapture lifestyle, seems like it is very close to the moment of death.

| Does the road offer a clue? | Nebras Hoveizavi | 2018 | 17 min

Tanin Torabi | The Dérive | 7:39 | 2017
“The Dérive” is made as part of a multimedia project by Iranian dance artist Tanin Torabi. Tanin questions identity, culture and place. She invites the audience to travel with her to an honest image of her own country, come back home again and face the reality of the moment, exploring social and cultural issues. The Dérive shows Tanin dancing among people in an old bazaar in Tehran capturing the responses and reactions. Dance is prohibited in Iran.