Film: احکام نگاه ahkam-e negah (The Commandments of Looking): The Work of Maryam Tafakory

Maryam Tafakory radically recontextualizes film, poetry, and archival sound and image to create a vital dialogue with post-Revolution Iranian cinema. Creating and illuminating layers of meaning through digital collage, her video essays and live performances provide a prismatic lens through which to view Iranian cinema and storytelling, without centering a Western gaze. The work is made for the people who recognize its cultural artifacts, but remains an accessible invitation across time and media for all who venture to look.

The first dedicated Los Angeles screening of Tafakory’s work, this program features several short films, including Mast-del (مست دل) which premiered at Cannes in 2023, as well as a rare live performance piece, for which there can be no recording or other documentation. The ephemeral quality of this work makes it the most poignant expression of Tafakory’s engagement with the seen and unseen, the taboo, the abstracted, and the veiled.

Programmed and note by Farihah Zaman in partnership with Museum of the Moving Image as part of the ongoing series Infinite Beauty: Muslim and MENASA Identity Onscreen.

Total program runtime: 64 min.

Irani Bag (کیف ایرانی)
2020. 7 min. Iran/UK/Singapore. Color. English. Digital.

Nazarbazi (نظربازی)
2022. 19 min. Iran/UK. Color. Farsi, English. Digital.

Mast-del (مست دل)
2023. 17 min. Iran. Color. Farsi, English. Digital.

CodeNames (اسم رمز) with live performance
2021/ongoing. 23 min (excerpt). Color. Farsi, English. Digital.