The House is Black, Forugh Farrokhzad, 1962
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Wednesdays at the Adam: Film screening
Forugh Farrokhzad, The House is Black, 1962, with an introduction by Richard Shepherd
Join us on Wednesday 28 July at 6pm for the third in our series of screenings associated with our current exhibition, Crossings. Like the works in the exhibition, these films have been selected for their relevance as we grapple with the effects of global lockdowns and the heightened anxieties generated by events of 2020, films that register the polarities of inside and outside, illness and health, public and private.
The only film directed by Iranian poet Forugh Farrokhzad, The House is Black, 1962, depicts a leper colony near the city of Tabriz in northwest Iran. Accompanied by a voiceover drawn from the Old Testament, the Koran and Farrokhzad’s poetry, the inhabitants of the colony live, worship, learn, play and celebrate in an isolated community shut off from the rest of the world. The 25 minute documentary would become a major influence on the direction of filmmaking in Iran, influencing critical figures such as Abbas Kiarostami and Samira Makhmalbal. As The Guardian recently noted, however, the film takes on a new meaning in the context of COVID-19:
Our pandemic will pass, but for the quarantined patients in the film, especially those with advanced leprosy, illness and isolation from the rest of society are facts of life.
The screening will be introduced by Richard Shepherd, whose 2017 photographic series Crisis Meeting is included in Crossings. Shepherd holds a Bachelor of Arts in Communication Studies from Otago University (2004); a Diploma of Photography, a Postgraduate Diploma in Fine Arts, and a Master of Fine Arts from Massey University, Wellington (2011). His video work On Borrowed Sand was exhibited at City Gallery Wellington’s Square2 space in 2011 and the photo series Romance was exhibited in the Courtenay Place Lightboxes in 2016. His work is in the Wellington City Council Collection. Shepherd is currently undertaking a PhD on Nicole Brenez and cinema as a visionary critical activity through Victoria University of Wellington and living in Whanganui.
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