maryam tafakory (b.shiraz/iran) works with images, words, and feelings to create textual and filmic collages that stitch together poetry, documentary, performance, archival, and found material. she is interested in depictions of erasure, secrecy, and the violence of invisible regulatory bodies.
her research-based projects, look at what is often neglected and discarded as trivial, excessive, or unscientific. she has an ongoing body of video essays in dialogue with post-revolution iranian cinema.
based between Shiraz and London, she completed her MFA at Oxford University, and her work has been exhibited internationally, including MoMA; NYFF; Locarno; TIFF; Cannes’ Directors Fortnight; IFFR; Oberhausen; FICUNAM; ICA London; HKW Berlin; True/False; M HKA; and Anthology Film Archives amongst others.
she was awarded the Gold Hugo at the 58th Chicago Int'l Film Festival, The Tiger Short Award at the 51st IFFR, Barbara Hammer Feminist Film Award at the 60th Ann Arbor Film Festival, and the Best Experimental Short Film at the 70th MIFF amongst others.
her work has appeared in Criterion's Daily, Sight&Sound, and Filmmaker Magazine. She was selected for Videonale.17, and Bloomberg New Contemporaries, and twice awarded the Aesthetica Emerging Art Prize in 2017 and 2019.
she was the 2019 Flaherty/Colgate Distinguished Global Filmmaker in Residence and she was a MacDowell Fellow in 2022.
pronouns [she/they/اون]