Curation
Curation and programming are a form of storytelling – three films chosen to sit alongside each other create and project a meta-narrative. We work with festivals, exhibitors and foundations to curate film programmes that reflect our core value – that a good story is all in the telling.
Our most recent curatorial projects are Shubbak Festival 2019 - a window in contemporary Arab culture - and Poetry in Motion: Contemporary Iranian Cinema, both of which took place at the Barbican Centre between April and July 2019. Elhum Shakerifar is also BFI London Film Festival’s programmer for films from the MENA region and Iran - a position she’s held since 2015.
Poetry In Motion: Contemporary
Iranian Cinema
Poetry In Motion: Contemporary Iranian Cinema took place between 3-24 April at the Barbican Centre in London to showcase some of the country’s most inventive filmmakers.
Reflecting Iranian culture’s rich, diverse traditions and love of storytelling, Poetry In Motion presents the work of bold contemporary directors whose stories will charm, surprise and enchant, a mix of everyday, universal themes, and the retelling of traditional narratives in new ways.
The season showcases emerging voices in Iranian cinema through the prism of Persian poetry, rather than through its modern day politics and often stereotyped representation. It features seven films – several of which are UK premieres - and ScreenTalks with an array of the country’s leading directors and artists.
Poetry In Motion: Contemporary Iranian Cinema was commissioned by the Bagri Foundation and curated by Elhum Shakerifar and Faye Harvey in partnership with the Barbican. Reflecting Iranian culture’s rich, diverse traditions and love of storytelling, Poetry In Motion presented the work of bold contemporary directors whose stories charmed, surprised and enchanted, through a mix of everyday, universal themes, and the retelling of traditional narratives in new ways.
"Positioning the cinema as a unique space for discovery and discussion, this season was developed in response – and as a provocation to – the stereotyped ways that modern Iran is predominantly portrayed. Iranian culture is imbued by rich, diverse traditions and by a love of storytelling, which has marked Iranian cinema more distinctly than is ever celebrated. By framing a diverse selection of new voices through the evergreen language poetry, we invite reflection and nuance, as well as a celebration of storytelling in its many guises through the live elements accompanying screenings"
- Elhum Shakerifar
See the full programme here
Read Elhum's introductory note on MUBI
Notebook here
Shubbak:
London's Festival of Contemporary Arab Culture
2015
Since 2015, Elhum has been film curator for Shubbak – UK’s largest festival of contemporary Arab culture. The 2017 season reflected on questions of ‘image creation of conflict’ and ‘imagined futures’ in an attempt to deconstruct the image and meta-narrative of the region.
Explore the programme through the Little White Lie’s review of the Imagined Futures Shorts Season; Barbican’s podcast with Mohanad Yaqubi regarding his documentary Off Frame; Bidisha’s overview of films made about Syria for Sight & Sound; Elhum’s article for Little White Lies about the women directors of the festival.
Little White Lie’s review of the Imagined Futures Shorts Season
Barbican’s podcast with Mohanad Yaqubi regarding his documentary Off Frame
Bidisha’s overview of films made about Syria for Sight & Sound
Elhum’s article for Little White Lies about the women directors of the festival
See the 2017 festival trailer here, and read more about Shubbak here
2019
Based on the themes of legacies and generations, Shubbak Festival 2019’s programme of films + ScreenTalks began on July 3, with the London premieres of SOFIA by Meryem Benm Barek Aloïsi (winner of Best Screenplay at Cannes 2018), Rana Eid’s “audio visual feast” Panoptic and Ghassan Halwani’s powerful debut feature Erased, Ascent of the Invisible; followed by the UK premieres of Karim Sayyad’s “majestic, mysterious and hypnotic” Of Sheep And Men, Sofia Djama’s “warm, intimately-hewn drama” The Blessed; festival favourite The Man Behind The Microphone by Claire Belhassine; and last but not least, a screening of Arab British Shorts followed by a timely panel discussion with Arab British Filmmakers, chaired by Elhum. For an additional touch of Arab culture, filmmaker and sound designer Rana Eid took over the Barbican Cinema’s foyer sound system with a playlist curated to compliment the season’s themes.
See the full programme here
Listen to Rana Eid’s playlists on Spotify here
or Soundcloud here