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Project Overview

The title of Maryam Tafakory’s video Nazarbazi translates (from Farsi) as ‘the play of glances’ – a vivid description of the captivating trail of looks and gestures Tafakory unfurls over the course of this twenty-minute found-footage collage. Iranian cinema, since the 1979 revolution, has made a point of never showing male and female characters touching – a prohibition that has prompted directors and audiences to willingly and knowingly conspire in a play of subterfuge, inventing ever-more imaginative proxies through which acts of intimacy can be suggested without being directly portrayed. Nazarbazi is made up of many of these moments; their smouldering surface tension evoking deep undercurrents of desire and anticipation, but also a steady, surreptitious resistance to the prevailing social order and its stifling conventions and norms. While all the films Tafakory references are from Iran, their associations resonate much more widely. The thrill of a secret or illicit liaison is familiar to lovers everywhere, many of whom have experienced how an unspoken or unrequited romance can prove all the more tantalising. At a time when the pleasures and the warmth of touch have been increasingly curtailed by public health considerations, its absence is felt all the more strongly. If the night has a thousand eyes, Tafakory enriches it with a hundred clips that, in turn, tell a thousand stories. Although these stories originate in the cinema and culture of one particular country, the impressions they make are powerfully, touchingly universal.

Read words sketched onto the night’s taut skin, an essay in which award-winning producer, curator and writer Elhum Shakerifar reflects on Maryam Tafakory's Nazarbazi, and the prohibition against touching in Iranian cinema that is the film's recurring motif.

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Read text by Elhum Shakerifar

Project details

Current exhibition

Nazarbazi

Film London Jarman Award 2024.

Multiple venues.

3 October 2024 – 1 December 2024

Nazarbazi

LUX, London

28 April 2023 - 17 June 2023

Nazarbazi

Doc Fortnight Shorts, MoMA

23 February 2022 - 10 March 2022

Nazarbazi

IFFR 2022, Online

26 January 2022 - 14 March 2022

Nazarbazi

Documenta Madrid International Film Festival

26 May 2022 - 8 November 2024

Nazarbazi

Kurzfilm Festival, Hamburg

1 June 2022 - 3 June 2022

Nazarbazi

Curtas Vila do Conde Film Festival, Portugal

15 July 2022 - 8 November 2024

Nazarbazi

EXiS 2022 Experimental Film and Video Festival, Seoul

15 July 2022 - 8 November 2024

Nazarbazi

Dokufest, DokuKino, Kosovo

7 August 2022 - 8 November 2024

Nazarbazi

Open City Documentary Festival, Genesis Cinema, London

9 September 2022 - 8 November 2024

Nazarbazi

e-flux Screening Room, Brooklyn NY, USA

29 November 2022 - 8 November 2024

Nazarbazi

Museum of the Moving Image, New York

5 February 2023 - 8 November 2024

Nazarbazi

Courtisane Festival, Ghent

31 March 2023 - 8 November 2024

Nazarbazi

İstanbul Film Festivali

16 April 2023 - 17 April 2023

Nazarbazi

Glasgow Short Film Festival

23 March 2023 - 24 March 2023

Nazarbazi

Film London Jarman Award 2024.Multiple venues.

3 October 2024 - 1 December 2024

More information

Commissioned by Film and Video Umbrella as part of BEYOND.

Media

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Press

Deadline | Rotterdam Film Festival Reveals Full Program Including Tiger Competition

7 January 2022
Link to article

Screen Daily | Paz Encina’s ‘EAMI’ wins top prize at Rotterdam 2022

2 February 2022
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Frieze | The Gains and Losses of Online Film Festivals

4 February 2022
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National Herald India | Reel Life: Nazarbazi-A game of glances

20 February 2022
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Cineuropa | 95 films to be screened at the 21st Las Palmas de Gran Canaria Festival

21 April 2022
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Realscreen | Open City Documentary Festival reveals 2022 lineup

27 July 2022
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Variety | Camden International Film Festival, an Oscar Campaign Hotspot, Unveils 2022 Lineup

22 August 2022
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Bright Lights Journal | It’s Cinema for You: Normcore Explodes at Melbourne International Film Fest

31 October 2022
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Göteborgs-Posten | Sanjin Pejkovic: Kvinnors uppror mot förtryck präglar iransk film

14 October 2022
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il manifesto | Archivio aperto, tra i corpi e la luce del cinema

26 October 2022
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Open City Documentary Festival | Mahan Moalemi on the Films of Maryam Tafakory

31 March 2023
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LUX | New Artist Focus: Elhum Shakerifar on Maryam Tafakory

24 March 2023
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ArtReview | Maryam Tafakory’s Haunted Iranian Cinema

22 October 2024
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