Maryam Tafakory is an Iranian-British film artist and video artist born in Shiraz, Iran. After dropping out of university studies in her home country she moved to the United Kingdom, where she enrolled in a computer science course at the University of Southampton. She acquired a Master's degree in Fine Arts from Oxford and a PhD from Kingston University.

Contextualizing repression in post-revolutionary cinema

Tafakory's upbringing and education in Iran after the 1979 Islamic Revolution have been instrumental in shaping her approach to the cinematic arts. Having expressed an interest in the visual arts from her high school years, Tafakory attended clandestine life drawing classes, where she became acquainted with human intimacy that was unrepressed and unregulated. Her experience with the repression that social and governmental interference exerts on every aspect of artistic expression made her acutely aware of the hidden tensions in Iranian film which skillfully evade censorship.

Her move to the UK opened up a multitude of prospects to channel her creative energies in the field of moving images. She researched archives of post-1979 Iranian films, closely analyzing them to extract the hidden feminist and queer narratives that elude the gaze of everyday viewers. Her works are firmly grounded in the genre of the essay film, taking excerpts from archival footage and – using mirroring, inversion and superimposition – creating layered compositions that recontextualize the footage.

Through her masterful editing of archival footage, Tafakory seamlessly combines cinema with performance, expressing what she terms a “rage against the archive.” She weaves poetry and speculative nonfiction into textual and filmic collages replete with symbolism while simultaneously dissecting the deliberate effacement of bodies, intimacies and histories which serves to criticize the Iranian government's social policies, but also the Western media's co-opting of the struggle of Iranian women for their own ends.

Maryam Tafakory, Poem & Stone, 2015. Courtesy of the artist and LUX London.

Tafakory in the world of moving images

Tafakory has been on the rise in the world of moving image art since the debut of her film Fragments (2014), which was nominated for Best Experimental Film at London Short Film Festival. Her distinctive style – a lyrical montage of images combined with Persian poetry – has set her apart by introducing a feminist and queer outlook on Iranian social norms. Her reliance on and handling of archival footage from post-Revolutionary Iranian cinema accentuates the repressed emotions that lurk beneath the surface.

Tafakory's films have been screened at Zurich Film Festival, International Film Festival Rotterdam, DocLisboa, Alternative Film Video Belgrade, Cannes Directors’ Fortnight and Locarno Film Festival. Her work has also been exhibited and screened at Whitechapel Gallery in London, Anthology Film Archives in New York, Museum of Modern Art in New York, e-flux in New York, National Gallery of Art in Washington DC and Academy Museum in Los Angeles.

Maryam Tafakory, Razeh-del, 2024. DCP 2K, color, 28 minutes. Courtesy of the artist.

Awards and recognition

Tafakory's short films have received many recognitions for their trailblazing qualities. Her ability to contrast the opposing concepts of masculinity (as embodied in the Iranian wrestling gym known as  “Zurkhaneh”) and her own emergent femininity in Absent Wounds resulted in her winning the Aesthetica Emerging Art Prize in 2017.

This was followed by a growing list of other prizes and awards: Barbara Hammer Feminist Film Award at the 60th Ann Arbor Film Festival; Golden Hugo for Best Short Film at the 58th Chicago International Film Festival; Sonja Savić Award at Alternative Film Video Belgrade in 2022; Aesthetica Art Prize in 2024. At the end of 2024, Tafakory was crowned with the prestigious Jarman Award, which is given by Film London.

Next projects

Tafakory is currently conducting research into issues of touching and prohibition at Kingston University in London. She is also active as a performance artist. In 2025, Tafakory has an upcoming solo exhibition at Kunsthalle Bern and a screening at Tate Britain.

Further information

Tafakory's film and video works are distributed by LUX London. Visit her site and her Instagram account for more information.

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