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Available April 17, 2025 4:00 AM UTC
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10 films in package
Woman/ژن
Woman is the first part of a trilogy that engages with the Iranian feminist revolution from the vantage point of diaspora. Through documentary media showcasing protesters on the streets, the film presents their civil disobedience as a collective performance, and explores the emerging narrative for woman, life and freedom.
In the Shallows
A look at the intoxicating effect of screen time in the age of mass media consumption.
Threaded
From a young age, Faisal has been marked by his indecisiveness. Each birthday, his mother would lovingly knit him a sweater in a different color, symbolizing the various paths he could take in life. These colorful threads tell a story of a boy growing up under the warm and watchful eye of a mother who wishes only the best for her son.
The Magic Boat
An intimate insight into the relationship between a mother and her child, in the midst of the most dangerous journey of their lives.
Tent Life
The film explores the lives of women living in tents and the lack of privacy they face. Each woman shared her concerns about privacy and seeks a solution. The elder grandmother, who brings them together for discussion, comes up with a unique idea–repurposing an old worn-out car by recycling it into a private tent for the women.
Rejected
The film tells the story of a young woman with a hearing disability, who is ignored and mistreated by those around her. A sad tale but with plenty of humor from the workshop's usual hilarious characters.
A Day in the Tent
The film explores the difficult and uncomfortable aspects of everyday life while living in a tent. Each member of every family has had to accept new roles and responsibilities in order to sustain their new reality.
My Grandmother Learns Sign Language
This film is about a deaf child who teaches his grandmother sign language so they can communicate.
Between the Past and the War
The film tells the story of a young girl named Maryam, who sits in front of the mirror to talk about her daily life and dreams. Maryam reflects on the details of her family, including her mother, father, and brother Murad. The film captures touching moments from Maryam’s life, highlighting family bonds and the challenges she now faces.
When I Walked Again
This film is about a young man who lost a leg and the difficulties he encounters in living life.
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RELENTLESS REFUSALS features recent short animated films by The Hakawi Animation Team, and animators Naaman Azhari, and Arash Akhgari, presenting perspectives from characters that refuse to silently accept the conditions or struggles they face. Included are stories told from children’s perspectives who plainly see and refute their unjust situations, brought about either from within their own societies or by occupying forces. Other perspectives highlight protest movements or a rejection of the world as we know it. 

Through workshops across refugee camps in Gaza, the Hakawi Animation Team have been working with children aged 10 - 13 to collectively bring to life their stories and lived experiences. The short stop-motion animations highlight various aspects of society in Gaza, both before and following the Genocide, with a lens that is playful and genuine but that does not shy away from the unbearable realities on the ground. 

Naaman Azhari’s films share gripping emotional stories between two mothers and their respective sons. The Magic Boat highlights the gruesome journeys that countless refugees from Syria and countries across the SWANA world continue to undertake. The film goes beyond the headlines in newspapers which reduce these individuals to numbers, tragedies or political scapegoats, and instead encompasses their lives and memories before embarking on their perilous journey. Threaded, engages societal stigmas and parental expectations placed on children. Weaving memories into the narrative through flashbacks, the film shares a mother’s love and pride for her son while unconsciously denying and concealing aspects of his life that go against the status quo. 

Arash Akhgari’s In the Shallows is an indulgent visual journey into the overwhelming nature of mass media today–from neverending emails to non-stop advertisements, and from perpetual breaking news items to addictive entertainment platforms. Created using intricate collages with ink and paint animations, the work hypnotizes the viewers’ senses while translating the inherent isolation of the digital era and the imminent age of AI. Akhgari and Gilnaz Arzpeyma’s collaborative animation Woman/ژن , is a emotive visual journey, using documentary-style footage embedded with animation, into the Women Life Freedom protests in Iran. Layering chants, poetry, music and video documentation soundtracks from the feminist and women-led revolutionary uprising, the short conveys a vision of civil disobedience as a collective performance of refusal.  

Engaging with diverse animation techniques, the works in RELENTLESS REFUSALS are able to convey the complex and at times contradicting emotions of their creators in a humanizing light. Each narrative contains elements of documentary storytelling, and reflects on the struggles of navigating situations and consequences often out of the protagonists’ control. Despite this, the stories are testimonies of experiences that are not unique to the individual creators, but that reflect larger urgent discourses that are taking place within communities around the region and beyond that cannot be silenced nor ignored.


RELENTLESS REFUSALS is curated by Lila Nazemian and is co-presented by ArteEast and UnionDocs. This program is part of the legacy program Unpacking the ArteArchive, which preserves and presents 20 years of film and video programming by ArteEast. The films from RELENTLESS REFUSALS will be screened in-person at UnionDocs on April 24 followed by a discussion with Arash Akhgari moderated by the curator.

Woman/ژن is the first part of a trilogy that engages with the Iranian feminist revolution from the vantage point of diaspora. Through documentary media showcasing protesters on the streets, the film presents their civil disobedience as a collective performance, and explores the emerging narrative for woman, life and freedom.


About the Filmmaker:

Arash Akhgari (1984) is an independent animator and visual artist, focused on expressive language of visual art, moving image and abstract story telling. He works with traditional mediums for animation as well as painting, drawing and collage, and explores contemporary visual languages. Born in Tehran.






Gilnaz Arzpeyma is an experimental artist who lives and works in Tiohtià:ke/Mooniyang (Montréal). Inspired by organic and water based mediums and using under camera animation technique she combines hand drawing with digital technologies. His experimental approach explores contemporary questions of borders, identity and technology through bodily expressions and visual poetry. She holds a BFA in Film Animation at Concordia University. His works have been screened in various worldwide film venues as animation and moving image artworks.

  • Year
    2023
  • Runtime
    3 minutes
  • Language
    Persian
  • Country
    Canada
  • Subtitle Language
    English
  • Director
    Gilnaz Arzpeyma & Arash Akhgari
  • Animator
    Gilnaz Arzpeyma & Arash Akhgari
  • Sound Design
    Nick Lavigne