Rizoo (2023)
Narrative | 16 min. | Iran/USA
Eight-year-old Rizoo—who’s recently moved back from California—lives with her mother and grandmother in Tehran. She is lively, polite and smart. But when she must take a class portrait, her world suddenly becomes very complicated. Does she wear the traditional head-scarf, which all girls over the age of nine must wear—or does she display her beautiful long locks? Seemingly everyone has an opinion. We witness Rizoo navigate the challenges of growing up a misfit girl in modern Iran. She may be small in size, but her spirit is big enough to change the world.
Screenings and Awards:
BFI London Film Festival, Oct 2023
San Francisco International Film Festival SFFILM, Apr 2024
International Short Film Festival Oberhausen, May 2024
Chicago International Film Festival, Oct 2023
Brisbane International Film Festival, Nov 2023
TIDE Film Festival, New York, Nov 2023
MENA Film Festival, Vancouver, Jan 2024
Vermont Film & Folklore Festival, May 2024
To be released for streaming on The New Yorker in 2024.
Gladiolus (2021)
Experimental Documentary | 5 min. | Iran
An ode to a flower that once enjoyed prominence in Iranian culture, Gladiolus tells the story of its ubiquitous role in life’s important ceremonies and how it became a victim of its own popularity.
Watch on Vimeo.
Screenings and Awards:
Honorable Mention: Prague International Indie Film Festival, Czech Republic, Jun 2022
SLAMDANCE Film Festival, Park City, UT, Jan 2022
FilmFest Dresden, Apr 2023
Atlanta Film Festival, Atlanta, GA, May 2022
Antimatter Media Art Festival, Victoria BC, Oct 2022
MENA Film Festival, Victoria BC, Canada, Nov 2022
Big Muddy Film Festival, Chicago, IL, Feb 2022
TRANÅS AT THE FRINGE - Tranas, Sweden, Jul 2022
Odds & Ends Film Festival, Charlotte, VA, Apr 2023
San Diego Underground Film Festival, CA, May 2023
The Yellow Curtain (2018)
Documentary | 21 min. | Iran/USA
In the 1970s, Iran seemingly had everything. U.S. President, Jimmy Carter called it "an island of stability" in a visit. Yet, only two years later, in the winter of 1979, a revolution happened. The Shah was overthrown and the Islamic Republic was established. It was a major change, a complete switch of power.
The Yellow Curtain interweaves the stories of three men around this sensitive time in history--persecuted Persian author, Gholamhossein Saedi, one of his fictional characters, Mansour, and the filmmaker's own grandfather, who worked directly under the Shah. Through a poetic blending of literature and cinema, the film examines many lives turned upside down; and in one rare case, a life right side up.
Watch trailer on Vimeo.
Commissioned by Fandor Filmmaker FIX, 2018.
Remembering the Pentagons (2016)
Documentary | 22 min. | 16mm | Iran/USA
Remembering the Pentagons is a slow, rhythmic and contemplative journey into filmmaker Azadeh Navai's earliest childhood memories. With an old 16mm Bolex and a hand-made pinhole camera, Navai returns to Tehran and Esfahan, Iran, where the perceptions and recollections of places, emotions, and scents serve as vehicles through which she exposes a deeply personal landscape. She asks - what is the texture of memory? In what ways does time - the light, wind, and air of history - wear upon the monuments and the images of the past? Her camera, gliding through mosques and the heady wares of a bazaar, provides grounding to narrative themes of childhood wonder and familial tragedy. But, as in memory, there is trouble in the image. The convulsions of recollection are perceptible even in the shifting grains of the film image - kaleidoscopic in their geometries of instability and flux. Born in Tehran during the Iran-Iraq war, Navai seeks to access a time of personal turmoil both for her family and for her birth country in this poetic capturing of place, history and memory.
Watch on Vimeo.
Screenings and Awards:
IFFR International Film Festival Rotterdam, Jan 2016
Best Short Film Nominee: Edinburgh International Film Festival, Jun 2016
Best Experimental Film Winner: FILMADRID, Madrid, Jun 2016
Best Student Short Winner: Los Angeles Documentary Film Festival, Oct 2015
Pleasure Dome: Minority Report by Nazli Dincel, Toronto, Mar 2016
St. Kilda Film Festival, Victoria, Australia, May 2016
Cine East Short Film Festival Berlin, Jul 2016
Syros International Film Festival, Greece, Jul 2016
UNDERDOX Internationales Festival Dokument Munich, Oct 2016
l'Age d'Or Festival Experimental, Brussels Cinematek, Oct 2016
Festival des Cinemas Differents Experimentaux de Paris, Oct 2016
San Diego Underground Film Festival, Oct 2015
Mothlight Microcinema: Minority Report, by Nazli Dincel, Detroit, Nov 2015
Light Field Artist-Run Film Festival, San Francisco, CA, Nov 2016
Released on Fandor.com
Friday Mosque (2014)
Experimental | 8 min. | 16mm | Iran/USA
Friday Mosque is a silent meditation on the Islamic prayer ritual, Namaaz, through motion--water is the core, but light is the cause. Shot on high-contrast black and white 16mm film, Azadeh Navai hand processes the negative and painstakingly contact-prints numerous foot-long strips of celluloid. The resulting image quivers and pulses. Enlarged film grain nearly obliterates the already abstracted image. There exists both a tension and serenity in the flickering frame. Every element is preparing for and anticipating the faithful soul that is summoned to the everyday practice. The silent tune of the calling, Azan, has overtaken.
Watch on Vimeo.
Screenings and Awards:
New York Film Festival: Projections, New York, Oct 2014
Special Jury Award Winner: SEFF Binghamton University Film Festival, NY, Dec 2014
November Film Festival, London, Nov 2016
San Diego Underground Film Festival, CA, Nov 2016
Another Xperiment by Women, New York, Sep 2016
CROSSROADS, San Francisco Cinematheque, San Francisco, CA, Apr 2016
8th Alchemy Film and Moving Image Festival, Hawick, Scotland, Apr 2015
Released on Fandor.com
Dear Auntie Pouri (2013)
Documentary | 8 min. | Iran/USA
Screenings:
Art of Video Editing, Muhlenberg College, PA / Dec 2015
CalArts Film Festival, Valencia, CA / May 2014