| Flowing Letters from My Successive Lives is a heptaptych film, which describes the seven parts of a melancholy journey through the history of Iran and my feelings of longing and nostalgia for my origin.;Flowing Letters from My Successive Lives is a film about attachment; attachment to one's roots and past, attachment to familiar culture and places; attachment to relationships of family and friends.;This film is structured through the use of seven themes, which depict: Dream, Arrival, Childhood, Love, Desperation, Departure and Return. A stream-of-consciousness form is achieved through the interweaving of the seven themes. Through the use of this technique, the film opens space for contemplation, emotion, yearning and questioning. The film echoes the rhythms found in poetry, and puts emotion and feeling into an auditory and visual form.;I think of the words in this film as being a melange of letters; fragmented, flowing pieces of paper, yet each with the meaning drifting through. These letters, written and visual, form a narrative of exile - as in filmmaker Chris Marker's provocative voice-over in Sans Soleil: "I'm writing you this letter from the edge of the world.";An open process, experimental film, it incorporates a plethora (an abundance) of visual media: family photos and movies; super 8mm, 16 mm and 35mm format films; HD cam digital video; and archival film footage; all of which have been transferred and then manipulated with an audio design. It is a film about one's whole life comprised of one's successive lives. Nostalgic thoughts and memories of the protagonist's origin swirl around the core of her being. She feels increasingly alienated and develops an inner conflict in which she is overwhelmed by memories of her past lives, her present thoughts and her dreams. In the film, reoccurring memories appear through the use of clipped flashbacks; old photographs, archival footage; and current images are used to create a nonlinear storyline about the lives this person has left behind. |
