Offscreen Notes
Screening of Shahin Parhami’s Faces
The Institute of Islamic Studies, McGill University
Invites you to a screening of FACES (2007), by Shahin Parhami, followed by a conversation with the director
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
3-5 PM
Morrice Hall
Room 023
FACES (100 min. Canada, Quebec, 2007) is an experimental documentary exploring the life and work in exile of 10 Iranian-Canadian artists as they represent themselves through art, performance, and monologues. This multi-layered documentary reflects on politics, pop-culture, history and the power of popular media as it crafts a new face for contemporary Iranian art and culture. FACES was premiered at Montreal World Film Festival and won the best feature film award at the Cinewest Experimental Film Festival 2007 (Sydney,
Australia).
Iranian-Canadian filmmaker SHAHIN PARHAMI was born in Shiraz, Iran. After his arrival in Canada in 1988, along with contributions of his poetry and essays to local Persian and English cultural/art journals, he pursued film studies and production, first at Ottawa’s Carleton University and later at Concordia University in Montreal. He has directed several award-winning short and feature films which have been screened in festivals, art galleries, and universities. From 1997 he worked on a trilogy: Nasoot (1997); Lahoot (1998); and Jabaroot (2003). The last part of the trilogy is a 60-minute poetic documentary on Iranian traditional music. His films have been selected by many prestigious international film festivals such as Montreal World Film Festival, Thessaloniki, Hot Docs, and Montreal International Festival of New Cinema.
