The Shadow on the wall, directed by Mehregan Pezeshki and Arash Kamali Sarvestani, is a surreal journey of an Iranian American artist, who is dealing with sexual trauma in her past. She tries to deal with post trauma through her art.
This is a surreal story about an artist who moved from east to west. She is dealing with her memories from the past. Her dreams, memories, conscience and unconscious are all intertwined to each other and it seems impossible to differentiate these worlds from each other. In her story, she is dealing with the multi cultural paradoxes of the social, political and sexual experiences in the present moment. The film goes into a deeper layer of social and cultural aspects of a generation who grew up with the paradox of the intellectual community in a repressive society. She is confronted by the traditional belief of the self-guilt in a sexually abusive environment.
On camera interview with Mehregan Pezeshki and Arash Kamali Sarvestani:
Mehregan Pezeshki
Mehregan Pezeshki (Born 1986 in Tehran, Iran; lives in Los Angeles) is an Iranian American multidisciplinary artist. Her artwork is often autobiographical, unraveling the traumatic memories of her youth while growing up in Iran. Pezeshki uses performance art to uncover hidden behavior which affect our daily lives. She employs an unconventional angle that challenges the viewers to step out of their comfort zone and observe human behaviors from a new perspective. Pezeshki holds a BA in Historical Conservation and Preservation from the Cultural Heritage University of Tehran and a BFA from the University of Texas at Austin. She currently continuing her MFA at California Institutes of The Arts. Her art work has been shown in Asian Art Museum of San Francisco and will be presented in Salem Peabody Essex Museum in 2023.
Arash Kamali Sarvestani
Arash Kamali Sarvestani (Born 1981 in Tehran, Iran; lives in The Netherlands) is an Iranian Dutch filmmaker based in Eindhoven, The Netherlands.
Arash is best known for his award winning documentary “Chauka please tell us the time” (2017). He has studied Cinema in Art university of Tehran. In 2009 he moved to Amsterdam to study AudioVisual in Gerrit Rietveld Academie and he lives in The Netherlands since then.
Arash made more than 20 short films and Video Arts in Iran and in the Netherlands. In 2017 he made his first feature documentary “Chauka, please tell us the time” together with an Iranian Kurdish journalist and refugee “Behrouz Boochani” who was detained in Manus Detention Centre about one of the most horrifying refugee’s detention centers in the world. Arash also made “Tall Fences, Taller Trees” (2019), and “You are not alone” (2021) about current situation of LGBT people in Poland together with “Katarzyna Heijna” a Polish journalist from Polish TV Channel TVN.
Contacts:
Sarvin Productions
Arash Kamali Sarvestani
Email Address: sarvin productions@gmail.com
Mehregan Pezeshki Studio
Mehregan Pezeshki
Email Address: Mehreganpezeshki@alum.calarts.edu