BIFF Offscreen: Shaereh

Shaereh is on view October 10 through October 15 @ Duende | Silo City.

After a life in Iran shaped by protest, loss, and exile, an Iranian woman turns to Sufi whirling as an act of embodied resistance. Through ritual movement and poetic imagery, Shaereh transforms silence into motion and personal grief into a collective vision of women’s freedom.

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Shaereh will be looping in the Cantina and projected on the silos at BIFF's BIG FUN party after sunset as well.

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Elif Koyutürk Hazen is a Turkish multidisciplinary filmmaker and visual artist working between documentary and poetic cinema. Rooted in immersive field research, her work explores the invisible architecture of identity, memory, and belonging across the ancient landscapes of Anatolia and Mesopotamia. Through observational and poetic storytelling, she traces how the past continues to shape the present, centering women navigating silence, power, and transformation while bringing forward voices and traditions that have been silenced or forgotten. Her award-winning documentary Bridging the Gap has screened at festivals internationally, and her short Peaks of Belonging received the 5Point STIO Grant. Her latest film Guardians of Anatolia is supported by the Mountainfilm Emerging Filmmaker Fellowship. She is developing The Story of the Lost Goddess, a series examining how systems of power reshaped female authority from prehistory to today.

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