ABOUT LISTENING

THREE FILMS BY NIKI KOHANDEL

Join us for the screening of three of Niki Kohandel’s films - Minnevissam (I am writing), Albalo and The Sparrow is Free - that explore themes of memory, intergenerational transmission, and story-telling.

The event will take place on Friday July 5th at 6:30pm and will include a discussion between Niki and Nia Fekri about the films shown as well as a writing and paper-boat making workshop with Niki. Book your free place HERE.

Niki Kohandel is an artist, filmmaker and facilitator based in London. She is a resident at the Arts and Media School of Islington, as part of Cubitt Gallery‘s Reclaim Islington programme. Working at the interplay between the analogue and the digital, she uses obsolete recording devices and her imperfect knowledge of languages to document stories and re-narrate her family's tales. Her films have screened at Anthology Film Archives, Another Screen, BFI London Film Festival and Open City Documentary Festival. 

Nia Fekri is an Iranian-British multidisciplinary artist and educator working primarily with moving-image, writing and performance. She is driven by the need to register the fragmentary and ghostly nature of immigrant experiences, familial relationships and intimate spaces. She is a graduate of the Slade School of Fine Art and has recently worked on projects in collaboration with UCL Art Museum and the British Film Institute.

Minnevissam (I am writing) (19’) maps the journeys of various characters, whose pasts continue to echo through other times and places. As they search for better words and worlds, a poet, a painter and an owl attempt to translate their tales for and with each other.

The Sparrow is Free (14’) is Kohandel’s short interview-film exploring gender roles in early 20th-century Iran through a window into the life of the filmmaker's grandmother.

Albalo (3’) explores what happens when a doll swallows a cherry pit.