Date: Tuesday 26 March
Time: 20:30
Venue: ICA, Cinema One
A Moon For My Father, Dirs. Mania Akbari and Douglas White, UK-Iran-Germany, 2018, DCP, 85 min., English and Farsi with English subtitles
Filmmaker Mania Akbari looks into the connection between her body and the political history of Iran, investigating the relationship between her own physical traumas and the collective political memory of her birthplace.
It’s hard to think of another essay film in recent memory that deals with such weighty themes – death and loss, memory, love, family ties, the body, birth, artistic creation, and how these somehow all mysteriously connect – with such intimacy, directness and lightness of touch as A Moon for My Father, co-written and co-directed by London-based Iranian filmmaker Mania Akbari and her partner, the British sculptor Douglas White. The form is epistolary, an exchange of letters over a period of several years from 2013 to recently, with imagery drawn from White’s art works, family photos, archive footage from Iran, and the couple’s everyday life together, deftly interwoven. We’re privy to witnessing a cross-cultural relationship deepen and transform, through art, through trying to make sense of the past, through dealing with pain and illness. The film is beautifully understated, leaves lots of space for the viewer to engage and reflect, and is all the more moving for that.
Following the screening Mania Akbari and Douglas White will be in conversation with Miranda Pennell.