ReFocus: The Films of Sohrab Shahid-Saless

Azadeh Fatehrad is a Researcher at the Visual and Material Culture Research Centre, Kingston University. Fatehrad has conducted diverse projects across Europe and the Middle East, including at the International Institute of Social History (IISH), Amsterdam and AFDI Archiv für Forschung und Dokumentation Iran Berlin eV,Berlin. She is co-founder of ‘Herstoriographies: The Feminist Media Archive Research Network’ in London and she is on the editorial board of the peer-reviewed Journal for Artistic Research (JAR).

A mystic poet of the hidden sights of our souls, Sohrab Shahid Saless was the filmmakers’ filmmaker.　　He achieved an almost cultic character in his homeland and his two Iranian films formed the DNA of Iranian New Wave before the Iranian Revolution of 1977-9 catapulted him into Europe and then the US where he died lonely and forlorn.　　Azadeh Fatehrad has given the world of cinema a priceless gift by editing a much overdue volume celebrating both phases of Shahid Saless’s Iranian and foreign filmmaking careers: in one he mapped the solitude of our souls, and in the other the exilic permanence of our very existence.

• Foreword by Vahid AlaghbandIntroduction by Azadeh FatehradPart I: The Life and Work of Sohrab Shahid SalessChapter 1: Slow, Closed, Recessive, Formalist and Dark – the Cinema of Sohrab Shahid Saless, by Hamid Naficy Chapter 2: Point-of-View, Symbolism and Music in Sohrab Shahid Saless’ Utopia, by Christopher Gow Chapter 3: The Blind Owls of Modernity. Of protocols, mirrors and grimaces in Sohrab Shahid Saless’ films, by Matthias Wittmann Chapter 4: ‘A Simple Event’ from a Historical Perspective: What Do We Talk About When We Talk About Realism?, by Majid Eslami 　Part II: Creative ExilesChapter 5: Sohrab Shahid Saless and the Political Economy of the New German Cinema, by Michelle Langford Chapter 6: The Aesthetic of Diaspora in Moving Image Practice, by Azadeh Fatehrad Part III: The Stateless Moving ImageChapter 7: Curating the Nomadic – Film and Video at Ambika P3, by Michael Mazière Chapter 8: A Certain Tenderness, by Gareth EvansChapter 9: Statelessness as Practice: Sohrab Shahid Saless and the work of exile, by Pierre d'Alancaisez Chapter 10: Screening Sohrab Shahid Saless’ Work: Contemporary Perspectives, by Dario Marchiori Interview by Behrang Samsami with Bert SchmidtFilmographyFilm about Shahid Saless: Sohrab, A Journey (2016) produced by Omid Abdollahi Index