Elsewhere Art House presents
Exile Echoes
A film by Mazyar Mahan · 2024 · Short documentary · 23 min
Official trailer
Synopsis
Four generations of Iranian women, and the memories they carry across half a century.
Exile Echoes weaves together the voices of four generations of Iranian women, revealing their shared memories and resilience in the face of an oppressive regime’s relentless campaign against women’s freedom and rights.
Their memories span the decades since the 1978 revolution and the rise of the Islamic Republic: a childhood summer on the beach, a first concert that never happened, a departure through an airport, a grave visited on a fortieth birthday. Moving the way memory moves, associative, layered, and sometimes contradictory, the film follows an artist as she turns the frustration, sorrow, and hope in her own story into a space you can walk into.
Director’s statement
Exile Echoes began as an attempt to really listen to Iranian women whose memories span the decades since the 1978 revolution and the rise of the Islamic Republic. Their stories don’t belong to one moment; they stretch across nearly half a century, each woman carrying a different piece of what that era took and what it left behind.
I filmed an artist, and watching her work became the film’s emotional center. I followed her process as she took the frustration, sorrow, and hope in her own story and turned it into something physical, a space you could actually walk into. Her hands became a kind of translation, turning private memory into something the rest of us could stand inside and feel.
I wanted Exile Echoes to resist a single narrative of oppression. Instead, it moves the way memory moves, associative, layered, sometimes contradictory, unbound by any one decade. The women’s voices here are not testimony in the legal sense; they are what persists after testimony, the parts of a life that don’t fit neatly into a record.
Making this film was its own act of resistance, proof that connection outlasts the systems built to sever it.
— Mazyar Mahan
Stills
Credits
Director & Producer
Mazyar Mahan
Writer
Neda Sheyda
With
Maryam Takalou, Moojan Hakim, Vajiheh Zamaniderkani, Zahra Jafarpour
Director of Photography
Fatemeh Baigmoradi
Editor
Sepideh Abdolvahab
Sound Design & Re-recording Mix
Ensieh-Leyla Maleki
Dialogue Editor
Hirad Alavifard
Foley Artist
Maryam Yaghoubi
Production Designer
Maryam Takalou
Production
Elsewhere Art House
Festivals & awards
Award Winner
Austin International Film Festival · Five Continents International Film Festival · USA Film Festival · Silver Wings International Film Festival · The Impact DOCS Awards · Global Film Festival Awards · Washington DC International Cinema Festival · Austin Indie Fest · The IndieFEST Film Awards · REEL East Texas Film Festival
Official Selection
Crown Wood International Film Festival · Anatolia International Film Festival · New York Istanbul Short Film Festival · Orlando International Film Festival · Los Angeles Short Film Award · Golden Short Film Festival · I, Immigrant · Courage Film Festival · Sunshine City Film Festival
Honorable Mention
International Motion Picture Awards · Milwaukee Independent Film Awards · Athens International Monthly Art Film Festival · Cinema Carnival · ATX Short Film Showcase · Cinematech International Film Festival · London Global Film Awards
Nominee
Woman, Life, Freedom Film Festival · Digital Griffix Film Awards
Finalist
Caravan International Film Festival
Semi-Finalist
Luleå International Film Festival
Details
Year 2024
Runtime 23 min
Genre Short documentary
Country United States
Language Persian, with English subtitles
Color Color
Aspect ratio 16:9
