Against the tumultuous backdrop of Iran's 1953 CIA-backed coup d'état, the destinies of four women converge in a beautiful orchard garden, where they find independence, solace and companionship.
Simin is an Iranian woman on a journey to discover what it means to be a free American. She works for the Census Bureau which, in an effort to control its citizens, has begun a program to record their dreams. Unaware of this devious plot, Simin is torn between her compassion for those whose dreams...
Made for the Venice Film Festival's 70th anniversary, seventy filmmakers made a short film between 60 and 90 seconds long on their interpretation of the future of cinema.
A film within a film, "Looking for Oum Kulthum" is the plight of an Iranian woman artist/filmmaker living in exile, as she embarks on capturing the life and art of the legendary female singer of the Arab world, Oum Kulthum. Through her difficult journey, not unlike her heroine's, she has to face...
The final part of the Creativity Trilogy explores existential threats our world is facing. An inspiring film about imagination's power and a hopeful glimpse into the future.
Four female artists have been politicized by experiences with war, violence and suppression and integrated them into their work, using their most personal tool: their own bodies.
The Colony, which shares the screen and the character of Shirin Neshat's Land of Dreams, is about an immense research institute devoted to recording and archiving the dreams of the local population.
ILLUSIONS and MIRRORS is about the futile attempt of chasing a shadow that wanders through the dunes of an empty beach. When it finally comes to an encounter in a deserted house, the young woman experienced a disturbing surprise.
Her poetic two-channel video installation Tooba is based on the Koran, in which Tooba, the sacred tree of paradise, offers shelter and sustenance to those in need. Neshat's video places a woman within a groove in the trunk of a large fig tree, symbolising its soul. They stand, alone, in a...
The story of a young woman who has been working as a prostitute since childhood. The film traces her slow disintegration into psychic delirium. Wracked by both guilt for her actions and a strong desire for salvation, her madness manifests itself in her perception of the world around her. ...
Roja is drawn from Neshat’s own recurring dreams, memories and desires. The work traces a young woman’s disquieting attempts to connect with American culture while reconciling her identification with her home country of Iran.
Shining a light on the trailblazing role of women war artists, on the front lines round the world, championing the female perspective on conflict through art and asking: when it's life or death, what do women see that men don't?
The installation features two black-and-white projections. One depicts a group of men dressed in Western suits and the other captures a group of women veiled in chador. In the work, Neshat takes on entrenched gender stereotypes by placing the men in a structured, architectural fortress and the...
In Sarah, 2016, it is a forest environment that becomes a site of haunting; mysterious and unknowable. The protagonist Sarah is played by Sara Issakharian, an Iranian-born artist.
In a highly fictionalized and stylized way, Neshat’s new film addresses the sexual exploitation of female political prisoners by the Islamic Republic’s regime in Iran. Subjected to severe torture, sexual assault, including rape, it is commonly known that even after being released, many of the...
Produced in collaboration with the American musical composer Philip Glass, Neshat’s narrative follows a procession of men as they carry a body through the desert to a grave that has been hand dug by women.
