About

I’m an Austrian-Iranian artist-filmmaker, fond of elliptical paths, conceptually, and ethically but also geographically. I move between London, Helsinki and Athens maintaining close ties to artistic and scholarly communities.
Elliptical shapes as metaphor and narrative methods also characterise my films guided by the cycles of departure and return innate to diasporic life – albeit one with privileged access.

Aesthetically, my audio-visual work sits somewhere between the folds of artists’ moving images, experimental documentaries and the essay film traditions. Works have been shown at the South London Gallery, Calvert 22 (London), Centre for Contemporary Arts (Glasgow), Telic Arts Exchange (Los Angeles), and at film festivals including the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary, Oberhausen, Kasseler Dok Fest, Videoex.

I am committed to dialogue and reflection, to mindful consumption, and to mitigating (historical) omissions and (present-day) exclusions imaginatively. For example, from 2011 to 2019, I was responsible for the creative direction and production of the Arts Council England-funded film programming initiative Sheffield Fringe and for the symposium and screening series “Object! On the Documentary as Art” held at Whitechapel Gallery and Close-Up Film Center in London (2017). These interventions, created in collaboration with colleagues and friends, aimed to provide a space and context to strengthen artists’ documentaries as a specific form of cultural production separate from market pressures. I thrive on conversation and love to cook and gather around food. My writings on film cultures have appeared in academic presses and film/art publications. I am a member of the Journal of Visual Culture editorial collective combining my film practice with film curating and film criticism.

Publications include:

“The Empathic Resonances of Village of Women (2019): Cinematic Expansion through Retreat” in Empathic Engagements in Art Pedagogy: History and Practice. Palgrave Macmillan (forthcoming)
“Keren Cytter and the Heimatfilm: Through the Lens of Geographical and Cultural Displacement” in Travelers, Wanderers, Nomads and Visitors: Thinking German Film History from the Margins. Berghahn Books (forthcoming)
“On Discomfort and Empathy in Rosalind Nashashibi’s Electrical Gaza”, in Focus Issue 11: Representing Women’s Realities, MAI: Feminism and Visual Culture Journal (2023)
“Not Another Moment of Your Salvation: Documentary, Art Practice, and Their Empathic Misadventures” in Constructions of the Real: Intersections of Documentary-Based Film Practice and Theory, Intellect Books (2023)
“Confessions of a Documentary Junkie: 2022 Love & Anarchy Festival Picks“, No Niin Magazine (2022)
“Relearning Forgotten Practices of Communication in a World after Catastrophe: On Empathy and Sky Hopinka“, Non-Fiction Journal (2020)
The Communicative Power of Silence: ‘Why Are You Angry?’, Another Gaze 03 (2019)

CONTACT: minou.norouzi[at]gmail.com