FAMILY PORTRAIT presents a compelling program of personal works by filmmakers who courageously turn the lens on their own families, revealing the resulting fractures that shape the fabric of their personal identities. Through these films, the filmmakers embark on a journey of excavation, unearthing their family histories and sharing intimate narratives that illuminate the interplay between individual stories and the broader cultural and political contexts in which they unfold.
Screening Online: July 22-29
RSVP: artearchive.org
Free / $5 suggested donation
Available Worldwide
Online Film Program:
Hand-me-downs, Yto Barrada, Morocco 2011, 16 min.
Echolocation, Nadia Shihab, USA, 9 min.
Radiograph of a Family, Firouzeh Khosrovani, 2020,109 min.
In person screening: Thursday, July 27th starting 7:30 pm ET
In partnership with Rooftop Films
Venue: Brooklyn Commons
Address: 5 MetroTech Center, Brooklyn, NY 11201
Tickets HERE
In-person Film Program:
Hand-me-downs, Yto Barrada, Morocco 2011, 16 min.
Joonam, Sierra Urich , USA, 2022, 103 min.
Yto Barrada’s Hand-me-downs combines blurry vintage amateur videos from private family albums from the 1960 to skillfully construct 16 myths of biographical identities that reflect the fractures of a changing colonial era.
A Radiograph of a Family by Firouzeh Khosrovani intimately explores the filmmaker’s own family history in Iran, unraveling the complexities of her parents’ lives against the backdrop of shifting political landscapes, from the Shah’s regime to the Islamic revolution and the Iran-Iraq war. Through photographs, archive footage, and letters, she uncovers the fractures and transformations that rippled through her family, reflecting how Iranian cultural struggles between tradition and modernization fractured her family and personal identity.
Sierra Urich’s Joonam follows the filmmaker’s personal quest to understand her American Iranian identity by turning her lens on her mother and grandmother. She navigates the barriers of language, culture, and displacement to construct an honest and humorous portrait of three generations of women and the challenges they face as they straddle the cultural divides between Iran and America.
In Echolocation by Nadia Shihab, distant and nearby voices merge to create a layered exploration of family memories. Through recorded voice messages and stacked photographs, Shihab constructs a poetic narrative that transcends time and space, reflecting on loss and change.
Together these filmmakers offer a portrait of their families, portraying how the broader sociopolitical context shaped their identities.
This program is co-presented by ArteEast and Rooftop Films and is part of the legacy program Unpacking the ArteArchive, which preserves and presents 20 years of film and video programming by ArteEast. Parts of the program will be screened online on artearchive.org from July 22-29 and in-person at Brooklyn Commons on June 27th. For more info on the in-person screening go to https://rooftopfilms.com/
