SHADOWLESS: IN TRANSIT
A hybrid fiction-documentary film about a traveller whose shadow wants to make itself independent upon arrival in Germany. Facing it and gazing at the shadow with the help of his video camera, memories and flashbacks cut rhythmically into the travellers records of the present untill a remix of his past and future occurs. All this in an in-between space, in a non-place, ‘In Transit’.
As part of the film program
A SENSE OF PLACE
In the collective documentary programme ‘A Sense of Place’, the six Iranian filmmakers Afsaneh Salari, Shirin Barghnavard, Mina Keshavarz, Mohammad Reza Farzad, Azin Feizabadi and Pooya Abbasian take a contemporary look at both life from the inside and existence on the run from Iran. The programme is created by producer Afsun Moshiry in partnership with The Wim Wenders Foundation, and the films have been developed in close collaboration with Wim Wenders and Hella Wenders.
* Nominated for
Preis der deutschen Filmkritik
Best Experimental Film 2023
By German Film Ciritcs Association
A hybrid fiction-documentary film about a traveller whose shadow wants to make itself independent upon arrival in Germany. Facing it and gazing at the shadow with the help of his video camera, memories and flashbacks cut rhythmically into the travellers records of the present untill a remix of his past and future occurs. All this in an in-between space, in a non-place, ‘In Transit’.
As part of the film program
A SENSE OF PLACE
In the collective documentary programme ‘A Sense of Place’, the six Iranian filmmakers Afsaneh Salari, Shirin Barghnavard, Mina Keshavarz, Mohammad Reza Farzad, Azin Feizabadi and Pooya Abbasian take a contemporary look at both life from the inside and existence on the run from Iran. The programme is created by producer Afsun Moshiry in partnership with The Wim Wenders Foundation, and the films have been developed in close collaboration with Wim Wenders and Hella Wenders.
* Nominated for
Preis der deutschen Filmkritik
Best Experimental Film 2023
By German Film Ciritcs Association
2023, 24”
Formats: DCP, Quicktime
Versions: Farsi, English
WRITTEN & DIRECTED BY
Azin Feizabadi
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY
M. Francisca Sáez Agurto
Azin Feizabadi
EDITED BY
Azin Feizabadi
Anika Grützmacher
SOUND DESIGN BY
Florian von Keyserlingk
PRODUCTION & DIRECTOR ASSISTANT
Matti Ulrich
PRODUCED BY
Afsun Moshiry / Road River Films
Hamidreza Pejman / Pejman Foundation
CO-PRODUCED BY
Baptiste Bertin / LA Onda Productions
Jens Maier-Rothe / Iconoclast
PROJECT CONSULTANT
Wim Wenders
Hella Wenders
SOUND CONSULTANT
André Rigaut
ASSOCIATE PRODUCER
Anne Winkler
COMMISSIONED BY
Deutsch-Französischer Kulturfonds
SUPPORTED BY
Martin Maurer
Stiftung Kunstfonds NEUSTART KULTUR
Related articles:
Iran is slipping through our fingers, DESISFILM, 2023, José Sarmiento Hinojosa
Wim Wenders Tells Young Filmmakers: ‘Trust in a Place Is Something That Can Give You Wings’, Vareity, 2023, Lise Petersen
Wim Wenders, Afsun Moshiry Unveil Six Iranian Docs At CPH:DOX As Iran’s Regime Continues Crackdown On Filmmakers!, DEADLINE, 2023, Mathew Carey
‘A Sense of Place’: un film collettivo sul senso di appartenenza, taxidrivers.it, 2023, Eleonora Ceccarelli
Iran is slipping through our fingers, DESISFILM, 2023, José Sarmiento Hinojosa
Wim Wenders Tells Young Filmmakers: ‘Trust in a Place Is Something That Can Give You Wings’, Vareity, 2023, Lise Petersen
Wim Wenders, Afsun Moshiry Unveil Six Iranian Docs At CPH:DOX As Iran’s Regime Continues Crackdown On Filmmakers!, DEADLINE, 2023, Mathew Carey
‘A Sense of Place’: un film collettivo sul senso di appartenenza, taxidrivers.it, 2023, Eleonora Ceccarelli
آذین فیض آبادی
UCHRONIA
An adaption of the Middle Eastern legend, Layla & Majnun, UCHRONIA depicts two disembodied Dark Matter aliens traveling from the furthest parts of the universe to planet 52°N,13°E: Berlin, Germany. Seeking their amorous union, an aim that would cause a cosmic catastrophe on their home planet, Earth enables the strangers to incarnate into human bodies and become matter, offering the promise of finally realizing their love. But the bodies they have chosen are freighted with their own physical, social, and conceptual baggage, entangling Layla & Majnun in a series of terrestrial problems they struggle to understand.
UCHRONIA is divided into three chapters, each chapter re-tells the plot of the film through three different cinematic styles, three sets of protagonists and three versions of the story’s outcome.
An adaption of the Middle Eastern legend, Layla & Majnun, UCHRONIA depicts two disembodied Dark Matter aliens traveling from the furthest parts of the universe to planet 52°N,13°E: Berlin, Germany. Seeking their amorous union, an aim that would cause a cosmic catastrophe on their home planet, Earth enables the strangers to incarnate into human bodies and become matter, offering the promise of finally realizing their love. But the bodies they have chosen are freighted with their own physical, social, and conceptual baggage, entangling Layla & Majnun in a series of terrestrial problems they struggle to understand.
UCHRONIA is divided into three chapters, each chapter re-tells the plot of the film through three different cinematic styles, three sets of protagonists and three versions of the story’s outcome.
2019 (German cinema release)
Length: 93”
Screening Formats: DCP, Blu-Ray, Quicktime
Versions: German, English
Cast: Michael Lewitscharoff, Elisabeth Helene Simon, Bashier, Abou-Essah,
Lina Erdogan, Vince Tillots, Ignazio Caporrimo et al.
Narrator: Jasmin Tabatabai
Writer, Director: Azin Feizabadi
Director of Photography: Carlos Andrés López, Carlos Vasquez
Gaffer: Catalina Fernández
Music: Amen Feizabadi
Kamancheh Performance: Saba Alizadeh
Production Design: Merle Vorwald
Editor: Stephan Bechinger, Mohammad Abdel Gawad, Azin Feizabadi
Make-Up artist: Nuria De Lario
Sound: Jaime Guijarro Bustamante, Kai Ziarkowski, Simon Konrad
Sound Design: Jaime Guijarro Bustamante
Research and Director Assistant: Giorgi Gago Gagoshidze
Production Manager: Viktoria Stolpe, Caroline Kirberg
Production: Maximilian Haslberger, Amerikafilm
Funded by by Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg, Einstein Stiftung, Graduiertenschule der UdK Berlin, KKWV & Amerikafilm GmbH
Related monitors:
Are were there yet? (Citation from UCHRONIA)
Casting (Citation from UCHRONIA)
Related stagings:
UCHRONIA: A Film Reading
A Process of Construction
Related displays:
Brigitte Na-Mira
NOW
ICH BIN DEUTSCHER
Chronicles from Majnun until Layla
Are were there yet? (Citation from UCHRONIA)
Casting (Citation from UCHRONIA)
Related stagings:
UCHRONIA: A Film Reading
A Process of Construction
Related displays:
Brigitte Na-Mira
NOW
ICH BIN DEUTSCHER
Chronicles from Majnun until Layla
Related texts & articles:
Podcast – Wolf im Ohr: UCHRONIA with Director & Producer, 2021 © Wolf in space, Interview: Anna Kondring
Once Upon A Time, Once Upon No Time, Introductory Notes, 2018 © Galerie Wedding, Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung
Grenzgänger im Zeitfluss, Zitty, 7th Issue 2018 © GCM, Irmgard Berner
Podcast – Wolf im Ohr: UCHRONIA with Director & Producer, 2021 © Wolf in space, Interview: Anna Kondring
Once Upon A Time, Once Upon No Time, Introductory Notes, 2018 © Galerie Wedding, Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung
Grenzgänger im Zeitfluss, Zitty, 7th Issue 2018 © GCM, Irmgard Berner
Pisces, August 2018
Short story in reference to UCHRONIA,
printed in After Cinema 2019
آذین فیض آبادی
CRYPTOMNESIA
CRYPTOMNESIA narrates the author’s childhood memories about his Asylum-Odyssey through Europe: France, Austria, Belgium, Germany and maybe Poland too – lasting for seven months, or one month or maybe three months. The film depicts the trip of a young man named Reinoldus on a Sunday summer day through the West-German industrial city of Dortmund: Reinoldus in a club, Reinoldus at the central train station, and Reinoldus hanging out with friends at the lake. His immediate experiences match cut on the screen with multiple flashbacks with his past memories: when, how and why did he come to Dortmund? What was Dortmund back then, and what is it now? Who is Reinoldus?
CRYPTOMNESIA narrates the author’s childhood memories about his Asylum-Odyssey through Europe: France, Austria, Belgium, Germany and maybe Poland too – lasting for seven months, or one month or maybe three months. The film depicts the trip of a young man named Reinoldus on a Sunday summer day through the West-German industrial city of Dortmund: Reinoldus in a club, Reinoldus at the central train station, and Reinoldus hanging out with friends at the lake. His immediate experiences match cut on the screen with multiple flashbacks with his past memories: when, how and why did he come to Dortmund? What was Dortmund back then, and what is it now? Who is Reinoldus?
Length: 73 Minutes
Screening Formats: Blu-Ray, ProRes Quicktime
Versions: German, English
2014
Cast: Rusbeh Sarfaraz, Dorothee Neff, Illias Nikolaidis, Maik Banach aka DJ Emby, Alvin Ejiro Aggreh, Tommy Catalano, Abdelaziz Lahmar, Daniel Wechsler et al.
Narrator: Azin Feizabadi, Rusbeh Sarfaraz
Writer, Director, Editor: Azin Feizabadi
Director of Photography: Karsten Jäger
Additional Photography: Rusbeh Sarfaraz, Azin Feizabadi
Title Design: Maziyar Pahlevan
Musik: Modern Persian Speech Sounds / Omid Walizadeh (B|ta’arof Records) Homayoo Composition & Performance Amen Feizabadi
Production Manager: Daniel Pauls
Distribution: Arsenal Institut für Film und Videokunst e.V.
Commissioned and co-produced on the occasion of 25/25/25 by Kunststiftung NRW for Museum Ostwall Dortmund. Premiered on Sep.6th 2014 at U-Kino, Museum Ostwall in Dortmund U.
Screenings (selection):
RWE Kino, Museum Ostwall Dortmund, 2014
House of World Cultures, Berlin, 2015
Maxim Gorki Theater, Berlin, 2015
Vox Populi, Philadelphia, 2016
Ludlow38 Gallery, NYC, 2016
Bidoun Projects, Guggenheim NYC, 2016
Museum für Moderne Kunst Frankfurt, MMK Tower, 2018
Related stagings:
A Process of Construction
Notes on Projection
Related displays:
Brigitte Na-Mira
ICH BIN DEUTSCHER
Drittwirkung von Grundrechten
A Process of Construction
Notes on Projection
Related displays:
Brigitte Na-Mira
ICH BIN DEUTSCHER
Drittwirkung von Grundrechten
Related articles:
History - Recollection - Identity, 25/25/25 Catalog, 2015, © Kunststiftung NRW, Daniela Ihrig & Dr. Kurt Wettengle
Reiseerinnerungen, Das Kulturmagazin des Westens, September 2014 © K.West, Stefanie Stadel
History - Recollection - Identity, 25/25/25 Catalog, 2015, © Kunststiftung NRW, Daniela Ihrig & Dr. Kurt Wettengle
Reiseerinnerungen, Das Kulturmagazin des Westens, September 2014 © K.West, Stefanie Stadel
آذین فیض آبادی
CONFERENCE OF THE BIRDS
Drawing on the medieval poem, Mantiq at-Tayr (engl.: Conference of the Birds), composed in 1177 by the Sufi poet Attar, this cinematically-projected event takes the form of a narrative film. The scenery depicts a trial in an empty, abandoned space: a non-place, a moment in-between time. There are two characters: the judge and the accused. The accused is a filmmaker who made an amorous film to illuminate the distance between himself and his beloved. Upon finishing the film, he is arrested and accused of hypnotizing the citizens, causing them to rise up and turning their inner reality outward into the public sphere. Spread across these two narratives, the voice over takes the spectator on a journey through seven acts, and together they both migrate like the group of birds that travel through seven valleys in search of the ‘bird of the birds’, the Simurgh, until arriving at the final scene, the Valley of Death.
Drawing on the medieval poem, Mantiq at-Tayr (engl.: Conference of the Birds), composed in 1177 by the Sufi poet Attar, this cinematically-projected event takes the form of a narrative film. The scenery depicts a trial in an empty, abandoned space: a non-place, a moment in-between time. There are two characters: the judge and the accused. The accused is a filmmaker who made an amorous film to illuminate the distance between himself and his beloved. Upon finishing the film, he is arrested and accused of hypnotizing the citizens, causing them to rise up and turning their inner reality outward into the public sphere. Spread across these two narratives, the voice over takes the spectator on a journey through seven acts, and together they both migrate like the group of birds that travel through seven valleys in search of the ‘bird of the birds’, the Simurgh, until arriving at the final scene, the Valley of Death.
Length: 48 Minutes
Screening Formats: Pro Res, Quicktime
Versions: English & Farsi
2011
Cast: Matt Trayonski, Shahryar Shahmatt, Azin Feizabadi
Narrator: Saba Riazi, Azin Feizabadi
Writer, Director, Editor: Azin Feizabadi
Text and Image Contributions: Andrea Geyer, Farkhondeh Shahroudi,
Neda Saeedi, Ernesto Pujol
Director of Photography: Christopher Turiello
Production Manager: Colin Nusbaum, Vladana Ilic, Lukas Brasiskis
Distribution: Arsenal Institut für Film und Videokunst e.V.
Screenings (selection):
The Kitchen, New York, 2011
Berlinale – Forum Expanded, Arsenal Kino Berlin, 2012
Townhouse Gallery, Cairo, 2012
Theater am Marienbad, Freiburg, 2015
Related monitors:
I Confess that I ...
Related stagings:
Poetics, Politics & Love Letters
Notes on Projection
Related displays:
Physical Principles
Felix, what will remain after all this?
Mission (Im)possible
ENQELAB
I Confess that I ...
Related stagings:
Poetics, Politics & Love Letters
Notes on Projection
Related displays:
Physical Principles
Felix, what will remain after all this?
Mission (Im)possible
ENQELAB
Related articles:
منطق الطیر با گویشی نوین در فستیوال برلن, Radio France International, February 2012 © rfi, Shahla Rostami
منطق الطیر با گویشی نوین در فستیوال برلن, Radio France International, February 2012 © rfi, Shahla Rostami
THE NEGOTIATION
A diverse group of actors come together on a film set analogous to the architecture of the UN Security Council – a roundtable. The script: an unnamed visual/textual three-act drama concerning an undefined revolutionary situation. Within the working process there is directing, reading, rehearsal and embodiment, through which the actors interpret their real and scripted characters. The borders between fictional and factual histories, individual and collective desires, projections and biographical backgrounds become increasingly blurry. Only commented from afar by an authoritarian narrator, the actors discuss, improvise and negotiate between language and the need for action.
A diverse group of actors come together on a film set analogous to the architecture of the UN Security Council – a roundtable. The script: an unnamed visual/textual three-act drama concerning an undefined revolutionary situation. Within the working process there is directing, reading, rehearsal and embodiment, through which the actors interpret their real and scripted characters. The borders between fictional and factual histories, individual and collective desires, projections and biographical backgrounds become increasingly blurry. Only commented from afar by an authoritarian narrator, the actors discuss, improvise and negotiate between language and the need for action.
Length: 38 Minutes
Screening Formats: ProRes Quicktime
Version: English
2010
Cast: Jeff Burell, Laila Gray, Stephen Patrick Hannah, Hening Kober, Julia Kratz, Erol Shaker
Narrator: Nil Wach
Writer, Director, Editor: Azin Feizabadi, Kaya Behkalam
Director of photography: Osama Rashid
Production: Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin
Commissioned on the occasion of On Rage, 2010.
Screenings (selection):
House of World Cultures, Berlin, 2010
Sheila C. Johnson Design Center, NYC, 2010
Queens Museum, NYC, 2010
Thomas Erben Gallery, NYC, 2011
Heidelberger Kunstverein, Heidelberg, 2012
Kunstraum Bethanien, Berlin, 2014
Optica centre d'art contemporain, Montreal, 2015
Framer Framed, Amsterdam, 2016
Related monitors:
I Confess that I ...
Untitled
Related stagings:
A Process of Construction
Related displays:
Drittwirkung von Grundrechten ENQELAB
I Confess that I ...
Untitled
Related stagings:
A Process of Construction
Related displays:
Drittwirkung von Grundrechten ENQELAB
Related articles:
Reloading Images, ON RAGE Catalog, 2010, © HKW, Valerie Smith (Extract)
How To Do Things With Words, BOMBlog, November 2010, © BOMB Magazine, Thom Donovan
Reloading Images, ON RAGE Catalog, 2010, © HKW, Valerie Smith (Extract)
How To Do Things With Words, BOMBlog, November 2010, © BOMB Magazine, Thom Donovan
