maryam tafakory (b.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; Locarno; IFFR; True/False; ICA London; BFI London; HKW Berlin; M HKA; and Anthology Film Archives amongst others.
she was awarded the Gold Hugo Award at the 58th Chicago International Film Festival, The Tiger Short Award at 51st IFFR, Barbara Hammer Feminist Film Award at 60th Ann Arbor Film Festival, Best Experimental Short Film at 70th MIFF, Fugas Award at Documenta Madrid, and Best Short Film at Festival de Cine Lima Independiente, 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]