CITY OF POETS
Sara Rajaei | Netherlands 2024 | 22 min. | English, Farsi with engl. subtitles
SUNDAY, 11.05. | 5:15 pm
De France, Saal 1 | TICKETS
Part of the Short Film Program ISA II
Austrian premiere
Photos from the family album tell of an Iranian city that perhaps used to exist. It was built for refinery workers and academics with the promise of an enlightened society. Its streets were named after women poets. War broke out and new neighborhoods emerged to accommodate refugees. Gradually the streets were renamed. The new street names now commemorate fallen soldiers.
In CITY OF POETS, Sara Rajaei tells the story of how a society’s emotions are inscribed in the city and blures the boundaries between utopia and lived memory.
Director: Sara Rajaei
Editing: Nathalie Alonso Casale
Sound: Milan Gataric
Production: near/by films
SCREENINGS & AWARDS
74. Internationale Filmfestspiele Berlin – Berlinale Shorts Competition
48. Hong Kong International Film Festival
16. Go Short – International Short Film Festival Nijmegen
21. Vienna Shorts
23. Doxa Documentary Film Festival
21. Documenta Madrid
20. FEST – New Directors New Film Festival
16. Leiden Shorts
19. Sole Luna Doc Film Festival
44. Nederlands Film Festival
BIOGRAPHY
Sara Rajaei is an Iranian-Dutch video artist and filmmaker based in The Netherlands. In her work, she studies the notion of time by reflecting on the absence of image, memory psychology, oral history, narrative techniques, and physical/psychological space. Her artistic oeuvre consists of short films and video installations, which remain in-between storytelling and imagery. After her graduation from the Royal Academy of Art The Hague in 2002, Rajaei attended a 2-year residency at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten Amsterdam. In 2009, she was shortlisted for the Prix de Rome. She is currently developing her first feature film with support of the funding scheme The Imagination (De Verbeelding) of Netherlands Film Fund.
