Maryam Tafakory – Screening with Q&A

Maryam Tafakory – screening with Q&A

11th February 2026, 8:30-10:30PM

Address: WORM, Boomgaardsstraat 71, 3012 BN Rotterdam

WET presents an evening of short films by Iranian filmmaker and artist Maryam Tafakory, in collaboration with WORM and EYE. The screening forms part of WET’s year-long programme for 2026, WHO FILMS WHO? The programme engages with questions such as: what are the rules and ethical considerations when filming other people? What is consent? What about breaking the rules? Who abides by the rules? Who sets the rules? Where does power lie, and what about censorship?

Maryam Tafakory‘s textual and filmic collages interweave poetry, documentary, archival and found material to explore questions of gender, power and representation. Drawing on pre- and post-revolutionary Iranian cinema, television and propaganda, Tafakory precisely yet subtly dismantles and reframes archival material, exposing how women’s bodies and gazes have been regulated within Iranian visual culture.

Selected works: Irani Bag (2020), Nazarbazi (2021), Mast-del (2023), and Daria’s Night Flowers (2025)

Irani Bag | 8′ Iran/Singapore/UK 2020
Using excerpts of films produced between 1990 and 2018, Irani Bag is a split-screen video essay questioning the innocence of bags in post-revolution Iranian cinema.

Nazarbazi | 19′ | Iran/UK 2021
Nazarbazi [the play of glances] is a film about love and desire in Iranian cinema, where depictions of intimacy and touch between women and men are prohibited. The film focuses primarily on images of women whose bodies have been erased and victimised in post-revolutionary cinema, alluding to discreet forms of communication that operate within yet circumnavigate the censors. The montage attempts to touch the spaces we cannot touch, inner feelings, untouchability beyond bodily experience, and the unwritten/unspoken prohibitions inside us. The film uses poetry and silence as the only languages with which we can touch these spaces of socio-political ambiguities.

Mast-del | Iran/United Kingdom | 2023 | 17′ | o.v. Farsi
Two women lie together in bed. As the wind bashes against the window, one recalls a past date to the cinema. The narrated scene cannot be conveyed through images. Layers of found and original footage are superimposed to fill in some of the cracks, the deletions, the limits of representation. A love song that would never pass through the censors, Mast-del is about forbidden bodies and desires inside and outside post-revolution Iranian cinema.

Daria’s Night Flowers | Iran/United Kingdom/France | 2025 |16′ | o.v. Farsi
Daria has written her first manuscript about falling in love with a mysterious girl called ‘abi’ [blue]. The night flowers in her garden hide the secrets of a country that has turned love stories into routine crime scenes.

After the screening, Tafakory will be present for a Q&A about the films.

Maryam Tafakory, born and raised in Iran, works with film and performance. Solo screenings of her work include MoMA, BOZAR, NGA (Washington, DC), and the Academy Museum, among others. Selected group events include the Tate Modern, Cannes’ Directors Fortnight, New York Film Festival, Locarno Film Festival, and Toronto International Film Festival. 

She was awarded the Gold Hugo at the 58th Chicago Int’l Film Festival, the Tiger Short Award at the 51st IFFR, and Best Experimental and Documentary Film at the 70th and 71st Melbourne International Film Festival. She was the 2024 winner of the Film London Jarman Award.

Cineville valid at the door and online on the day itself!

Image credits: still from Daria’s Night Flowers, Maryam Tafakory, 2025