Ghazal-e Sorkh

Ghazal-e Sorkh (Red Gazelle) was the code name of a young poet whose underground publications circumvented censorship under the Shah’s dictatorship. Like many other poets, filmmakers, and students, she was arrested. Under the monarchy, thousands of books were banned and critical voices were violently silenced.

Reports of arrests and disappearances, torture, and executions led to a call in 1976 for Western artists to boycott the Shiraz Arts Festival. Five years earlier, Orson Welles had lent his voice to a lavish film commissioned by the Shah—Flame of Persia documents the extravagant celebrations marking 2,500 years of the Persian Empire, and was attended by dozens of heads of state who were treated to the Shah’s hospitality.

To the rhythm of an eerie soundtrack, Maryam Tafakory blends fragments from that film together with disturbing news footage. She also pairs Welles’ bombastic narration with images from a banned film about Iran’s oil industry. Poetry becomes an act of resistance in this layered film essay, which interweaves personal, national, and international histories.